Adding to these are the snippets of dialogue which litter each spread, short sentences that are sure to be fun to read aloud in different voices. The mannerisms of the birds go a long way toward developing the personalities of each, belying the fact that this is a picture book Crow's flights are majestic, wingtips curled, while Cardinal's wings perk out at odd angles. In contrast, the birds are outlined and coloured in thick blocked lines, supporting the remarkable range of body language used to tell the story and the fascinating amount of expressions Portis is able to achieve simply by the shaping of the birds' eyes (à la Jon Klassen's This Is Not My Hat).
In particular, the broad expanse of the sky backgrounds benefit, given this book's longer-than-usual trim size Portis shows the passing of time in beautiful ombe gradients and lit-up/shadowed sides on hedges that move, signifying the transition from day to night and back. But keep reading, and soon the genius of the illustrations reveals itself. The intriguing mix of pencil, charcoal, ink and digital colour is unusual and provides an almost collage-like effect that seems cartoon-ish at first. AND the story promotes creativity – booyah! I’d even go as far as college with this, for logo development! Find a list of Portis’ awesome books – HERE watch this full PBS documentary online: A Murder of Crows.To be honest, the illustration style did not attract my attention at first when opening the book. Resources/activities: this book would be great in the art room, because kids should learn how to use simple shape changes to differentiate between animals of the same class. If I didn’t love ’em so much, well…! I love it’s beautiful graphic composition, and the spunky little sparrow/main character who entices her friends into creative disobedience! And my favorite new bird call? ‘Itsy boggen!’ Read it to see why! And I even asked my library to purchase it before it was released! But they forgot to notify me when it came in. When Little Brown Bird decides she doesn’t want to sing the same old song, out comes a new tune that shakes up the neighborhood and changes things forever in this funny, innovative book that kids will love to read outloud. Summary: (from my library catalog) In a normal neighborhood, on a typical day, the birds chirp, the dogs bark and the cats meow. And the birds in the neighborhood went ‘Caw’, ‘Coo’, ‘Chip’, ‘Peep’,… Opening: All year long, the dogs went ‘Woof’.
Publisher: Neal Porter/roaring Brook Press, 2014
0 kommentar(er)
