My Beautiful Birds
February 7th, 2017 by jules
I squeeze back, hoping it will steady my wobbly legs. Everyone I know is here.
We are walking, one after the other. ‘Just like follow-the-leader,’ says Father.”
(Click to enlarge spread)
The plight of Syrian refugees was in the news well before we elected such a disastrous and hateful president, but due to his recent travel ban, it’s all the more top of mind for folks all over the world. Having picture books on hand that can explain this to children is helpful, and I recently wrote here at Kirkus about picture books that capture the plight and flight of refugees.
Coming to shelves in March is Suzanne Del Rizzo’s My Beautiful Birds (Pajama Press), a new book specifically about Syrian refugees. Rendered in bright and textured polymer clay and acrylic, it’s the story of a boy named Sami, leaving his Syrian home (with a sky full of smoke) to escape war. The boy is concerned about the pet pigeons he leaves behind. “It will be okay,” his father tells him. “Your birds escaped too.” When Sami and his family make it to a refugee camp, the boy tries to create art commemorating his birds, but his art only turns to black. Sami eventually comes to some peace when he a canary, a dove, and a rose finch fly into the camp.
Del Rizzo writes in an arresting first-person, present-tense voice, the story coming straight from the boy’s point of view and giving us a glimpse into his inner turmoil. (“I count footsteps, never wanting to look up again.”) The family may be momentarily safe in the refugee camp, but he can still hear “loud booming” and “days blur together in a gritty haze.” Del Rizzo captures in this kind of descriptive language the experience — but closing on a note of hope when the boy makes a friend at the camp (and not just his feathered ones). In a closing author’s note, she summarizes the plight of Syrian refugees, singling out the work of the United Nations Refugee Agency. In her bio, she notes what prompted this story — reading about a boy who “took solace in a connection with wild birds at the Za’atari refugee camp” in Jordan and being struck by “the universality of a child’s relationship to animals.”
Here are some spreads from the book. …
I ask my sky to watch over my pigeons, wherever they are, to hide them in cloudy safety. Now, when the smoky nightmares boom, I watch the clouds. Sometimes,
fluffy cloud-pigeons take shape. Spiraling. Soaring. Sharing the sky.”
(Click to enlarge spread)
(Click to enlarge spread)
MY BEAUTIFUL BIRDS. Text and illustrations copyright © 2017 Suzanne Del Rizzo. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Pajama Press, Inc., Ontario, Canada.
This looks truly extraordinary. Seems to strike a good balance for young children of information, empathy and hope. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Alas, it’s more timely than ever, with today’s news from Amnesty International…
I follow your reviews with pleasure and appreciate this one. I’m horrified over the plight of refugees and will buy the book.
I do wish my book world could stay less political, though of course not where choices in reading material are concerned. There is at least one librarian out here who gets a jolt whenever our “presidential situation” is referred to, as if all of us are of course in total agreement.
Jules, thank you for sharing this book – the cloth/clay mixed media looking illustrations are AMAZING, and the topic is painful – yet hopeful, all rolled into one.
And, friend Rosalyn, we all get a jolt – and rightly so – when we hear about the terrible things happening to our most vulnerable and helpless. It’s hard to find it pleasant to keep talking about it — how much more so if we were forced to live it.
Tanita, I certainly do talk, with great concern, about terrible things happening to our most vulnerable and helpless. May we find a solution. That’s not my complaint.
I refuse to normalize what this president does. And will speak up about that every opportunity I get.
These clay illustrations… holy smokes, they take my breath away! (No pun intended, I swear.)
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