Love Birds

September 1, 2022
When birds are easier to speak to than people, what do you do when you meet another bird lover? It's been a month, and Jon still hasn't spoken to another kid his age since he moved to town. Still, while he may not talk much, he's an excellent listener. He listens particularly to birds of all sorts, in the fields and the skies. One evening he hears a barred owl and imitates its song. Yet when he follows its response, he instead finds a girl and fellow bird lover named Janet. Together they talk and listen together, "for days and weeks, / and into the years." While Yolen's author's note states that this book is a partner to her Caldecott Award winner Owl Moon (1987), illustrated by John Schoenherr, it might be more accurate to say it exists in the same universe. The story sets up a nice series of contrasts (Jon's mother's chattiness versus her son's silence versus the give and take of Jon and Janet's conversations). Meanwhile Wilson weaves images of birds into an array of panels. Delicious details also hide in the cracks of these pictures, like the images on a page opposite the author's note depicting photographs of Jon and Janet growing older, marrying, and having children to bird with. Jon and his mother are light-skinned, and Janet presents Black. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Feathers and friendship make for a good pairing in this gentle ode to appreciating both. (Picture book. 4-7)

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November 7, 2022
A shared passion for birding leads two children to friendship—and later, to love—in Yolen and Wilson’s gentle picture book. New in town, Jon, a child portrayed with bushy red hair and light skin, has yet to connect with any kids (“You’d think he didn’t know how to talk,” criticizes his mother). But he fills his time listening to all the sounds around him, including
those made by birds, and especially “autumn owls.” Hoping to call a barred owl into view one evening, Jon is thrilled to hear a response, only to discover that “it wasn’t a bird. It was a different listener, a girl about his age,” named Janet, who has a bubbly laugh and is portrayed with brown skin and loose curls. Yolen’s crisp text captures the exuberant rhythm of the duo’s instant bond: the two (one who “rarely talked” and one who “always listened”) spend hours chatting “about nights and nightjars, about nests and nestlings, about hoots and calls, about feathers and wings.” In richly hued landscapes that showcase brilliant bird plumage, moonlight and shadow, and a multitude of evergreen and birch trees, Wilson portrays two birds of a feather finding each other. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–8.