How to Make a Bird

Meg McKinlay, Matt Ottley (Illustrator)

$18.99

Publication Date: April 20th, 2021

Publisher:

Candlewick

ISBN:

9781536215267

Pages:

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Description

Stunning imagery and moving language let imagination take flight in an ethereal primer on making a bird.

Breathe deeply and take your time.
The making of a bird is not a thing to be hurried.

To make a bird, you’ll need hundreds of tiny, hollow bones, so light you can barely feel them on your palm. So light they can float on air. Next you’ll need feathers for warmth and lift. There will be more besides—perhaps shells and stones for last touches. But what will finally make your bird tremble with dreams of open sky and soaring flight? From award-winning author Meg McKinlay and celebrated artist Matt Ottley comes a lyrical and lovely picture book that shows how small things, combined with wonder and a steady heart, can transform into works of magic.

About the Author

Meg McKinlay is an award-winning author of children’s books and novels. Her picture books include DUCK!, illustrated by Nathaniel Eckstrom, and Duck for a Day and No Bears, both illustrated by Leila Rudge. Meg McKinlay lives in Australia.

Matt Ottley is an award-winning artist as well as a musician and a Yamaha-endorsed composer. His illustrations have appeared in more than three dozen books, but How to Make a Bird is his first book with Candlewick Press. He lives with his partner in New South Wales, Australia.

Praise for How to Make a Bird

A child imagines, designs, and builds a bird only to let it go and watch it soar through the clouds. . . Observant readers will catch subtle visual details that flesh out more of this lyrical, visually beguiling tale. This story, infused with an ethereal, wondrous tone, is for creative souls everywhere, those who know what it is to imagine something and to experience the joy of bringing it to life with care—and the bittersweet feeling of letting it go and moving on. . . Imaginatively stirring and altogether haunting, this one stays with you.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

An elegant, confident voice narrates this gently uncanny second-person-perspective book, following a brown-haired, light-skinned child who builds a bird from scraps, watches it come alive, and sets it free. . . . A beautiful rumination on creating.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)