Birdsong: A Story in Pictures: TOON Level 1 (TOON Books, Level 1) - Hardcover

Mr. James Sturm is a cartoonist. He lives in White River Junction, Vermont with his wife, two daughters, a chunky little dog named Chi Chi, and two rabbits. Besides making comics, James works at The Center for Cartoon Studies, a school for cartoonists.

K-Gr 2—In an author's note, Sturm (author, with others, of Sleepless Knight and Gryphons Aren't So Great) relates that the images for this nearly wordless book were originally created for a friend to perform on a folding kamishibai theater. The pictures tell the story of a boy and a girl who stomp and race through a wooded area, thoughtlessly tormenting the animals they come across. (They flip over a box turtle, whack a branch that a bird is sitting on and then chase the frightened creature.) Eventually, they rouse the ire of a bearded man on a mountaintop with a tridentlike spear in his hands, who turns the children into monkeys. As monkeys, the two soon find themselves running from a lion, then hunters, and end up under a big top, advertised as chimp children: "THEY READ! THEY WRITE!" The left side of each spread of this small, horizontally formatted book features a green and yellow leafy border on the outside and white space on the inside, which serves to frame and highlight the vibrant pen-and-ink images on the right-hand page. Most of the scenes are fairly simple, with telling details carrying the story forward. When the two creatures are eventually released into the wild, they are able to make amends with the animals they have mistreated. This is a story that is sure to garner interest and discussion. VERDICT Young fans of this publisher's graphic novels will recognize the familiar format and be eager to borrow this enchanting book.—Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal