Bluebird

To illustrate her quiet tale about a bluebird who can't find the wind, debut artist Yankey combines line drawings, collage, botanical motifs, and plenty of airy space. The park around which the action centers is in some distant capital, its tall trees and green lawn flanked by classically proportioned buildings. Viewers follow the bluebird as she visits the places she's found the wind before, but everything is still. Model sailboats float motionless in the park pond; a kite lies undisturbed on a bench. "Surely she would find the wind down an alleyway helping dry the clothes on the lines. But the wind wasn't there either. The clothes hung straight down." Viewers see a white wall and a red doorway; they have to look a little further to see the alleyway and its clotheslines through an arched opening in the wall. Even Grandma Brooks' wind chimes are silent. She sits in an elaborately wallpapered room watching her grandchild sleep while the bluebird perches outside. The theme of observation from a distance gives the story a dreamy calm; muted colors and creamy pages deepen the tranquility. Up to age 3. (May)