Name: Bird
ISBN: 9781600602412

Shadra Strickland

Zetta Elliott

Bird, an artistic young African-American boy, expresses himself through drawing as he struggles to understand his older brother's drug addiction and death, while a family friend, Uncle Son, provides guidance and understanding.

Bird

Sarah Sammis

Bird by Zetta Elliott is about a boy who loves to draw his urban landscape. His drawing is in part a way to escape the harsh realities of his life and he talks about them with a man he calls uncle.

The book is told in free verse with a mixture of illustration styles: those representing Bird and his world and those Bird has drawn. Bird's drawings are lovely and intricate and remind me of the architectural drawings in My Havana.

But there's a problem with the illustrations of Bird — a sloppiness for which I'm docking two stars. Bird is shown drawing with his right hand on the cover but inside the book he's sometimes drawing left handed and sometimes right handed. It's not a plot point, just lazy drawing.

Bird

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