Katherine Paterson

Young and feisty Gilly Hopkins devises a scheme to escape from her new foster home and reunite with her birth mother.

Life does a 180-degree turn for bitter spinster Lettie (Mary Tyler Moore) when she takes in her 9-year-old grandniece, Travis (Holliston Coleman), in this Emmy Award-winning movie. Confused by her aunt's cold treatment, Travis attempts to uncover the reason for Lettie's self-imposed seclusion by befriending farmhand Isaiah (Charles Robinson) and Lettie's former beau Sam (Burt Reynolds). Can the three reawaken Lettie's long-gone love of life?

"The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks" is an animated version of the 1990 children's book of the same name, written by Katherine Paterson, and Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, based on a Japanese folktale. The description for the original book reads thus, "A pair of mandarin ducks, separated by a cruel lord who wishes to possess the drake for his colorful beauty, reward a compassionate couple who risk their lives to reunite the ducks."