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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YOUNG | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | JP You | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A clever counting book and fable unlike any other and winner of the 2011 Governor General's Award for Illustration.
Ten birds are trying to figure out how to get to the other side of the river. The bird they call ?Brilliant? devises a pair of stilts. The bird they call ?Highly Satisfactory? engineers a raft. One by one, nine resourceful birds make the crossing until a single bird is left behind - the one they call ?Needs Improvement.' This bird's solution proves surprising - and absurdly simple.
More than a counting book, Ten Birds is a witty story that highlights ingenuity, common sense and the inadequacies of labels. Cybèle Young's intricate chiaroscuro pen-and-ink drawings depict a rich alternative world that both children and adults will marvel over.
Author Notes
Cybèle Young is an internationally renowned artist, represented by galleries in New York, London, Vancouver and Calgary. Her art practice and family life have also inspired the creation of several children's books. She was nominated for a Governor General's Award for Illustration in 2000, and has written and illustrated two titles (Ten Birds, Kids Can Press, and A Few Blocks, Groundwood Books).
Cybèle Young is an internationally renowned artist, represented by galleries in New York, London, Vancouver and Calgary. Her art practice and family life have also inspired the creation of several children's books. She was nominated for a Governor General's Award for Illustration in 2000, and has written and illustrated two titles (Ten Birds, Kids Can Press, and A Few Blocks, Groundwood Books).
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Counting from 10 to none, each bird devises an inventive, mechanical way to cross a river. Their names each reflect the ingenuity of their devices. Stunning black ink drawings detail the birds, the numbers, and the inventions. This entertaining fable leaves the simplest solution with readers. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
In a clever, handsomely illustrated counting book, ten sleekly plump birds, with wings rather small for their bulk, endeavor to cross a river. Happening on some odd mechanical devices, each contrives its own transport -- catapult, kite, balloon -- and also (with the same materials) constructs a numeral telling how many birds are left. Meanwhile, each is described in report-card lingo: "Brilliant"; "Quite Advanced"; "Highly Satisfactory." Next to last, "Remarkable" makes extensions for his wings, but it's "Needs Improvement" who's smart enough to simply walk over the bridge that's been visible all along. This may suit fledgling surrealists better than budding engineers. Unlike Arthur Geisert's meticulously detailed Rube Goldberg constructions (e.g., Pigs from A to Z, rev. 1/87), Young's elegant pen-and-ink drawings are rife with such impossibilities as a fan-driven raft with no possible source of power and a rope somehow stretched bank-to-bank. Such incongruities can be fun to discover and discuss, along with the irony of the descriptors and of the fact that these are birds, who, in the end, will simply fly away. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ten small black birds approach a river whose bank is decorated with a series of Rube Goldberg-style apparatuses. One by one, each bird, identified by a glowing name (Brilliant, Extraordinary), uses something from an apparatus to engineer its own passage across the river, while the remaining parts form into a numeral that indicates how many birds remain. Finally, after each apparatus is spent, the last bird, Needs Improvement, walks across an adjacent bridge, which was visible throughout the other, more complicated triumphs. Young's scratchy pen-and-ink drawings on buff paper recall Arthur Geisert's intaglio prints in style and composition, and the crisp, straightforward imagery provides a simple foil for the abstract, layered complexity of the story. Young children will enjoy seeing the numbers revealed and will look for them in the original configurations of hardware and tackle. But the artist's explorations of identity, expectation, and possibility will captivate an audience of older children ready to engage with the creative interplay between imagery and meaning.--Barthelmess, Tho. Copyright 2010 Booklist