cover image Teenie Bird: And How She Learned to Fly

Teenie Bird: And How She Learned to Fly

Greet Bosschaert. ABRAMS, $12.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-3586-0

In this debut from a Belgian author-illustrator, a timid starling hesitates to soar like her four brothers. Teenie Bird is a runt, and her all-white feathers do not match those of her black-and-gold-flecked family. ""My brothers are eager to do everything by themselves.... I like for my mother to do it for me,"" she whispers, looking to her parent for a bite of earthworm. She cannot bear the thought of flying and clings to the branch of a sturdy cherry tree. Only on the closing pages does she join her brothers in the air, saying, ""Though I am small, I am just as brave as they are, and can fly just as high."" This revelation, if gracefully expressed, rings false after so much anxiety. Bosschaert's first-person narrative portrays Teenie as exceptionally shy, and connects inhibition to femininity; Teenie's ""tough and daring"" brothers call her ""a silly little girl."" Yet the rough-hewn monoprint-and-acrylic images, which suggest the paintings of Wolf Erlbruch or Georg Hallensleben, give a different impression. Dynamic swirls of blue and red suggest windswept clouds, and thick brushstrokes make all the birds, Teenie included, appear substantial and alive as they pick globular orange cherries. Bosschaert's dense, tactile spreads contradict the uncertainty of the title character's voice, and the life-size birds flutter boldly on the pages. Scott Beck's Pepito the Brave (Forecasts, Dec. 18, 2000) covers the same territory more convincingly. Ages 3-6. (Mar.)