Tag: Picture Books

by Tomie de Paola

I will tell you about this book starting with the end: the author\’s explanation. De Paola relates how he once dined in a restaurant in northern Italy on a very cold day at the end of January. The proprietor told him that in the area of Italy he was from, the last three days of January, coldest of all the year, were known as the Days of the Blackbird because \”it gets so cold that the white doves hide in the chimney tops to stay warm. And when they come out, they are black from the soot.\” Inspired by the imagery, de Paola wrote this fable-like tale about a young girl and her father, Duca Gennaro.

They both enjoy the songs of birds in their courtyard garden all summer, and wait through winter for the birds to return in spring. One year Gennaro falls ill, and his daughter worries that he will not survive the winter without the hope the birdsong gives him. She begs the birds to stay, giving them food and shelter. But as the days get colder and colder, more birds leave for the south. Only one remains, her favorite white dove. In the dead of winter the bird sits in a chimney top to keep warm at night, only coming out to eat and sing at the window. On the third day the bird has turned black from the soot and is renamed La Merla. When spring finally comes, Gennaro has recovered and La Merla gladly welcomes back the other birds. In this story the bird remains black for ever after.

It\’s a beautiful tale, enriched with depictions of a bygone era in Italy (or so I imagine, the time period of the story is not exactly specified) with dress styles, the architecture of the homes, cultural holidays and more. The narrative is a bit sophisticated for my three-year-old, so I paraphrase a little when reading to her, she still likes the story with its pretty birds and the devotion of a girl to her father.

There\’s another version of the blackbird fable shared on one of the blogs linked to below.

Rating: 4/5     32 pages, 1997

more opinions:
loving every leaf
Our Little Library
Biery\’s Book Blog

by Jack Bushnell

Jenny is thrilled when she sees a hawk on her father\’s farm. It perches in the same tree on the edge of a snow-covered field, and every day she goes out to see it. But then she hears men in town talking, her neighbors who have lost chickens to a hawk. Even though it\’s against the law, they feel justified in hunting the hawk down, to protect their livestock. Jenny starts to worry: will the hawk attack her father\’s chickens? will one of her neighbors shoot it? She feels an affinity with the wild bird, thinks that it comes to the farm just to visit her. Celebrating nature and the closeness of a fierce wild thing, this book also takes a serious look at the reality of what happens when a predator visits a farm. Spoiler: this particular hawk doesn\’t die, but a different one is shot. The illustrations by Jan Ormerod are lovely watercolor paintings, overlaying expressive line ink drawings.

Rating: 4/5       32 pages, 1996

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by Mary Lyn Ray

I got this book at the library because I wanted to find more picture books with illustrations I love looking at. So I searched for some of the illustrators I\’ve really admired in past books. This one has lovely oil paintings by Peter Sylvada, whose work I first saw in Gleam and Glow. (I thought I had written about that one, but can\’t find it anywhere on my blog! Must remedy that…)

The book is about a bird, a brown nondescript bird with a lovely flutelike song. On a farm a boy waits for late spring, when he always hears the song of the thrush. When his father wants to clear some land for a corn field, the boy begs him to leave the trees standing, because that is where the thrush lives. His father agrees. In fall the bird flies away and the boy waits all winter to hear it again. Meanwhile, in another part of the world a different boy waits for summer to end, waits for the rainy season when he will hear the thrush\’s song. His father also wants to clear trees off the land, and this boy too begs to leave them alone- for that is where the bird lives, the bird with a voice like a clay flute. This father too, agrees, and the boy listens all winter until the thrush disappears in springtime. Neither boy knows where the thrush goes when it leaves them, but they are tied together.

In the afterward the author gives some information about migratory birds, particularly the thrush, and how they are threatened by habitat loss. It\’s an important message beautifully communicated. I love looking at the pictures- the rich texture, the broad paintbrush strokes that suggest just enough form to let your mind fill in the rest.

Rating: 4/5      32 pages, 2004

more opinions:
Nurture PDX