Thursday, April 11, 2013

April Big Kid Pick: The Bird King

The Bird King: An Artist's Notebook

How about a volume of absolute inspiration? Find The Bird King, an artists's notebook by Shaun Tan, and you'll find just that. Here is a great Big Kid Pick for the older sibling of your totz.

Shaun has graciously shared his notebooks with the reader. Within this book are early paintings and pencil sketches full of energy and vibrancy. You will be fascinated. So often those qualities diminish as a work is labored. The Bird King brings that life in Shaun's first lines into your hands.

There's a great degree of vulnerability in sharing your journal or notebook, sharing concepts and thoughts that might have been abandoned or were developed with finesse later. It takes strength to share, and I give thanks to Shaun for doing so. I plan to keep this book close as I know it will inspire images in my own journals.

Take a peek, and you'll find you are instantly absorbed. I imagine the older siblings of your totz will be motivated to grab their own pencils.

One more note to trumpet. The illustrator is correctly named an artist by this title. Bravo!

The Bird King, an artist's notebook
by Shaun Tan
Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic

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