For as long as I can remember I have been an animal lover. My parents, and then my husband, have had to put up with the injured birds, mice, voles, squirrels, dogs and cats that I have brought home. Many of my 'patients' didn't make it, but a few have. I will never forget how I felt when my bluebird chicks flew up to where their parents were waiting for them, and how thrilled I was when my one-eyed starling flew off to start a new life. In today's picture book we will meet some people who open their hearts to an injured bird and whose hearts, I am sure, are enriched because they did.
Bob Graham
Picture Book
For ages 5 and up
Candlewick Press, 2013, 978-0-7636-3903-7
One day high up above the city streets, a pigeon flew
into a glass window and then fell to the ground below. No one saw the accident
or the fall, and no one saw the pigeon lying on the cement with its eyes closed,
a single feather lying beside it. People walked by the fallen bird, never
looking down, until Will came along.
The little boy
saw the pigeon and realized that it was alive and injured. He picked the bird
up and showed his find to mother, who was, at first, unsure of what to do. Then
she took off her scarf and wrapped it around the bird and together they took
the animal home.
Will’s father
did not know what to do either when he saw the bird, but when he saw his son’s
concern and hope, he too took on the cause of the bird. Together Will, his
mother and his father did everything they could to make their injured guest
comfortable. Though they could not put the feather the bird had lost back where
it belonged, they could hope that the broken wing would heal.
This beautifully
illustrated book, with its spare and meaningful text shows to great effect how
powerful hope can be. We see how the little boy and his parents have the same
willingness to do what they can to help another living thing that is in trouble,
and how they invest time and effort on its behalf.
This is a book
that readers of all ages will appreciate.
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