The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Rating: 5 stars

About a month ago Ben was playing with an airplane, complete with little pilot, that he had crafted from Legos.  As he zoomed the little thing through the air, he said, "I'm Amelia Earhart!  Here I go!"

I stopped what I was doing a few feet away in the kitchen (I'm there a whole lot), and asked him to repeat himself.  He did.  I asked him how he knew who Amelia Earhart was.

"Santa brought me a book about her for Christmas!" he stated.

Wow!  Go, Santa!  I patted myself on the back but was more surprised than proud at the fact that her name and a few facts about her sank into his bright, little brain.

I just wrote about Ben's interest in birds thanks to his pre-Kindergarten class's unit on birds (click here to read it), and the interest stayed alive throughout this quietly wonderful biography on John James Audubon. It's a beautifully illustrated, wordy book, best for age 5-ish and up, I think.  It tells this wonderful story:

To avoid fighting in Napoleon's war, his father ships his son, John James, to Pennsylvania.  The boy is talented at many things, but his natural instinct draws him to birds.  Soon after arriving to his new home and while spending most of his days outside wandering and observing, he finds a cave.  In it sits a small, empty nest.  Weeks later, he sees that the small pewee fly-catchers returned to the nest.

Right then, John James starts wondering the same thing that scientists and naturalists wondered around that time:  Are these the same pewees who built the nest last year? Where did they spend the winter? Will they return again next spring?  He quickly draws the birds and notes his observations in his notebook, which he kept in his musée, or museum, otherwise known as his bedroom.  Every inch of that room is covered with nests and eggs and tree brances and pebbles and lichen and feathers...

But where were last year's babies, now grown?
He began to search the woods and orchard nearby,
listening for their call.

At that time, some people thought small birds hibernated under water or in hollowed logs all winter.  Others thought the small birds transformed into another species, while one scientist claimed that birds fly to the moon during winter!  In case you're wondering, he thought that journey took 60 days (but I'm not sure if that's one-way or round-trip...).  John James is determined to figure out the mystery, so he begins to experiment with a tracking system.  After more errors than success in his trial-and-error process, he finally finds a light silver thread that fits snugly on one of the young pewee's legs.  At the end of fall, the bird flies off.

All winter John James waits, and also paints pictures of birds and collects little artifacts for his musée.  Finally, as the days grow longer, he sees a pewee bird fly into his cave.  But there is no string.  He begins to search the woods around the cave.  Sure enough, out in the meadow, he finds the now-mature baby with a silver thread around its leg.  In 1804, he is the first person in North America to band a bird.  And his simple experiment solved a complex theory.

I love that one boy's curiosity and respectful experiment with the birds he loved revealed so much.  What a wonderful lesson for girls and boys of today!

While Jacqueline Davies deserves applause for thinking up, researching, and writing the book (Bravo!), the book would not be complete without Caldecott-winning illustrator Melissa Sweet.  Her illustrations are spectacular, as always (my favorite book of hers is not the one for which she earned the Caldecott but for another nonfiction A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen).  

Happy birding!

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen by Jen Bryant

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Rating: 5 stars

This is a really neat nonfiction book about artist Horace Pippen (and illustrated by super talented Caldecott winner Melissa Sweet) that I reviewed a while ago for a local mag, the Washington Family Magazine:

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen provides just the kind of story I want my children to see, read, and have in their heads and hearts for years.

Here's the story: Horace Pippen was born in West Chester, PA, in 1888.  He grew up in a large family where no one had much and everyone helped out.  From a young age, he loved to draw.  “If he could find a scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal, he drew pictures of what he’d seen that day.”  By looking around to what was available to him, Horace made scenes and people come alive on his paper.

To read the rest, click here.

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

Rating: 5 floaty, bouncy stars

I was going to write about  Balloons Over Broadway last night, after returning from my sister's house for a grand Thanksgiving meal.  With apple pie in my belly and wine in my brain, I figured I'd wax poetic about this book, about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, on the very day of the parade.  Perfect, right?

Life stepped in a very funny way...as it has a tendency to do.

We left my sister's house around 8, and the blue-eyed kids (that'd be Kiefer and Lorelei) stayed awake during the ride home.  My fellow hazel-eyed kid (Ben!) had that oh-my-god-his-neck-is-going-to-hurt! stance and was completely zonked.  Hmmm.  It's a good holiday when the kids fall asleep in the back on the way home, I think.  But then there are those details: How can I get him to get inside, go to the bathroom, change into pajamas without waking up?

I succeeded (with the help of my husband, thank you to him), and my night ended with the chance to gaze at one of our sleeping children, cute when awake but angelic when asleep.  A very appropriate end to a day for giving thanks.

Lorelei and I read this book as her brothers slept in their rooms.  I promised to find a movie "on the computer" in the morning to show her what we'd read about.

This is a great nonfiction account of Tony Sarg, the inventor of those huge balloons that float and bob down Broadway during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The book starts with his childhood--I love when books do this as my kids (hopefully) realize that great men and women start out as creative little tykes--and quickly takes a turn to New York City, where Sarg makes old-school marionettes for children.  Macy's soon invites him to make one of their still-fantastic window holiday displays.  And then, Macy's decides to hold a parade for their mostly-immigrant workforce, to recreate the music and dancing--a street carnival--that they missed in the countries they had left.  They employed Sarg, and the first parade was a huge success in 1924.

After the balloons were eased under the El, they ended in front of Macy's,
at Tony's Wondertown windows.  It was a parade New Yorkers would never forget!

And, in pure American tradition, they had to make each year bigger and better, right?

At first, animals from the zoo were used in the parade.  But then--here's a shocker--kids started to get a little scared by the lions and tigers and bears (oh my).  To replace the animals, Sarg starts to work on his idea of enormous puppets.  At first he was inspired by an Indonesian rod puppet in his toy collection and created heavy creatures, but they didn't satisfy him.  He had to figure out a way to create something like a marionette but with the controls below and the puppet high, something that would rise up high enough so that lots of people could see them--not just the lucky few in the first row.

Helium was the answer!

And so--you guessed it--after a bunch of thinking and creating and trials and errors, he was finally satisfied with a huge balloon-like puppet that bobbed and nodded its way through the super-crowded streets of the city.  Like those we still see today, like in yesterday's 82nd parade.

In all honesty, this morning I forgot my promise to show Lorelei a video of the parade in New York City.  But as our family headed over to Reston for lunch, we saw--GASP!--big balloons like those in the book!  With our very own eyes!  Bobbing and floating, held up by strings!  The kids were SO excited and, as you can tell by the sudden burst of exclamation marks, I was as well.  How exciting to have something we read about right in front of us.  It was really cool.  I did get a picture of one of the big ol' balloons, but I assure you this clip from youtube is better (I love how Spiderman seems to crawl up from the street), and fun to share with your child when you check this book out.

And I highly recommend that you do check out this book.  The illustrations are top-notch and the story is really interesting and inspirational.  A smile to Tony Sarg, who had a dream in his head and worked on it until it became a reality.