Review: This book is about a boy that sees a bird sitting outside his window one day. This bird has the most beautiful songs that it sings and he believe he should paint a portrait of this bird. When he begins, he starts with just a cage, he then tries to lure the real bird into his painted cage by painting jewels into the bottom. He then takes his canvas outside and and places it under a tree. He then is prepared to wait days, even years before he catches the bird.

Uses: I would use this book to help children think outside the box with their writing. I would also use this book to help teach the importance of the illustrations of a book.

Genre: Fantasy- This book is a fantasy because the boy in the story paints a picture of a bird by capturing it in a cage that he paints on a canvas, he also is able to make the bird sing even though it is only a painting.

Media: Oil paints

Taking Jacques Prévert's poem Pour faire le portrait d'un oiseau as its text, this picture-book from Caldecot Medal-winning author/artist Mordicai Gerstein (he won the award for 2003's The Man Who Walked Between the Towers) follows a young boy who, immediately upon waking, begins to paint a portrait of the bird upon his window-sill. An imaginative exploration of the artistic process, with advice about how to proceed, How To Paint the Portrait of a Bird pairs Prévert's simple text (as translated by Gerstein) with lovely illustrations that fairly jump off the page.

Truth be told, I was a little less than wowed by the text - whether this was owing to issues of translation, or to a lack of appreciation for Prévert's work itself, is unclear to me - although I can see how it might have great appeal for others. What really stood out for me here were Gerstein's illustrations, which I found simply delightful! I loved the use of color, the boy's expressive face, and the sense of vitality and motion to be found throughout. The scene in which music "break forth" - and it really does break forth! - is particularly memorable. All in all, a charming little picture-book, even if not quite the triumph, for me anyway, that I was expecting. ( )

I appear to be the sole dissenting voice on GoodReads with regard to How To Paint The Portrait Of A Bird. This book failed to move me. I didn't love the modern, scrawly illustrations by Gerstein. I didn't even like them- except for the bird. The bird bordered on the transcendent, especially in a face-on page where its wings described a pure and glorious arc. But the bird appeared to be in the wrong milieu to my eye.

I did not find that it echoed the creative process, at least not the creative process as this artist knows it. Clearly, my mileage varies from the norm here. It simply failed to work for me. ( )

A poem illustrated.... re the magic of art and creation... waiting for the muse to bring a bird to a cage you've painted.... then erasing the cage.... and painting a beautiful environment for your bird... and waiting to see if the bird will sing... only then can you sign your painting... The bird may fly away, but that's okay, you can paint another one tomorrow...

Thankfully, and perhaps because of its age, the publisher has refrained from printing "From the acclaimed screenwriter of the French classic Children of Paradise" because that would have prevented me from picking the book up at all.

Actually I was drawn to the book by the illustrations. From half way across the room I saw the cover and said "Is that a new Gerstein book?" because there's just something about his style that is distinctive to me. A few pages in and I knew I was in some sort of picture book trance. There is something about the language, the pacing, something that ultimately has to do with patience.

In short sentences we are given specific instructions on how to paint the portrait of a bird. The illustrations show us a boy in bed visited by a blue and yellow bird on his open windowsill. Carefully we are instructed that one is to paint a cage, and supply it with a treat, and then take that painting out to the woods and set down beside a tree, there to wait. The bird follows and sits on a branch above the painting. Eventually the patience is rewarded as the bird enters the 2-dimensional plane of the painting where the boy carefully is instructed to close the 3-dimensional cage door. Once captured on the canvas the instructions explain how to carefully erase the cage and in it's place paint a tree for the bird to sit on. you can then take the painting home to enjoy the bird in the privacy of your room where, come sun-up, the bird will fly off the canvas. You can always paint another bird tomorrow, you are reminded.

What is at first odd, then comforting about the text is how contemporary it feels while at the same time feeling classic. That Prevert was a poet as well as a screenwriter is evident in the deliberation used to give us instruction; there is a respect for the nature of time as well as the arc of the narrative. What Gerstein brings to the party are the things not spoken, the watercolor, pen, and ink world that permits objects in different dimensional planes to co-exist and interact. Nothing changes in the illustrations but our perspectives as we learn both how to "paint" the surrounding imagery in order to "capture" the nature of the thing observed. It's also a lesson in capturing the moment, giving it temporary shelter, and then releasing the moment in order to re-experience it again in the future.

I'd gladly accept a 90% reduction in new releases of picture books if it meant more like this was the result. It has the depth of European title and the approachability of an American book and, for the early picture book set, is clearly one of the smartest titles in the room. ( )