Once, a Bird
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Once, as the winter ended, a little bird emerged to find the world had gone quiet.
The streets were empty and the playgrounds still. Puzzled but determined, the bird explores the town in search of a suitable place to nest. The residents of an apartment building notice her resting in a tree outside and take comfort in her song. Watching through their windows, they look beyond their lives and pause to appreciate the wonders of nature. The bird chooses to make this community her home and builds a nest, an act of resilience and hope that inspires the humans to emerge as well, reminding them that natural rhythms continue, seasons change and life goes on. Once again.
This wordless picture book is a hopeful contemplation of our interconnectedness with the natural world and the joy that nature brings us, even in unusual times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the opening sequence of this eerie wordless picture book, a bird resembling a robin alights on snowy branches, then flies over cloverleaf highways and sectional croplands without encountering a single person. In lichen-green and pale blue watercolor and gouache panels, Dion shows the bird perched solo at an empty playground and bathing in a fountain, and what initially seems peaceful begins to feel troubling. As buds arrive on trees, the bird descends through chalky clouds to a branch near an apartment building, where its song inspires astonished humans, portrayed with various skin tones, to look, leading to moments of connection. Even after the bird raises three young—drawing people to their windows and even out of doors—the title's unsettling opening lingers, seeming to offer a subtext-heavy ecological warning that lands without much explanation. Ages 3–5.
