The Paper Bird

A sumptuously illustrated exploration of the joy that comes with creating art for one's own self\\nThere once was a time when all the colors, from midsummer blue to sunrise orange, lived at the tips of Annie's fingers...\\nBut when her classmates' sidelong glances cause Annie to notice all the tiny flaws in her art, her colorful creative spark fades--quite literally--to gray. With lyrical prose and eye-catching illustration author-artist Lisa Anchin shows readers how to find the beauty in imperfections and celebrate the joy of creation for creations' sake.\\nFrom School Library Journal\\nGr 2-4-Annie is a young Black girl who uses bright paints and crayons. All her classmates, mostly white, use faint watercolors. One day, Annie witnesses her drab classmates laughing, and assumes they are laughing at her. Dejected, Annie quits drawing, and the color literally drains from the world around her. Annie speaks to no one about her hurt feelings; adults are conspicuously absent from the illustrations. Alone after school, Annie resumes her artwork. She imagines her drawings coming to life. Discarded scraps grow into trees lined like notebook paper. A turquoise bird emerges from Annie's paper and fills the monochrome gray sky with blue spirals. She returns to school the next day, happy and colorful. Copious text reiterates what is shown in the colorful illustrations, but does not provide any additional context. For instance, at the end Annie is shown interacting happily with the classmates who laughed at her the day before. It is not explained why Annie's classmates happily welcome her back the next day, given that, from their perspective, nothing has changed and they were never aware that they hurt her feelings. VERDICT To have a child suffer harm to her self-identity and process it alone, a coping method with potentially toxic long-term effects in reality, isn't a message to pass on.-Chance Lee Joyner, Haverhill P.L., MAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.