Birds, by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek
From its splendid, colorful cover right through to the last joyous page, this small child’s book about birds offers a masterful wedding of thoughts and pictures.
It is an amazingly eye-catching book. Vivid colors spring from each page: bright blue jays, candy-pink apple blossoms, midsummer green lawns. Its nice tall size allows for some gorgeous, large pictures that simply flood the pages from edge to edge with birds and skies and trees. These contrast nicely with other pages designed quite differently, bold paintings set on crisp white space. Simply stunning. 
The text is brief and thought-provoking. It is simple and surprising by turns. A little girl tells us her observations about birds. True, they sing very nicely in the mornings, and they come in many colors and sizes. But…did you ever ponder what the sky would look like if the tail feathers made marks while the birds flew? Or what clouds would look like if they were actually birds? Page after page, we listen in to this young girl’s thoughts about the birds she clearly loves, and our imagination and appreciation for birds, soar.
I am totally taken with this book! It is beautifully written, beautifully illustrated. It addresses one of the most familiar parts of nature, which nearly every young child has some access to, and lifts up the beauty and wonder of these delightful feathered miracles.
orange marmalade 