Bird 
By Zetta Elliott
Illustrated by Shadra Strickland
9781600602412
Young Mekhai, better known as Bird, loves to draw. With drawings, he can erase the things that don’t turn out right. In real life, problems aren’t so easily fixed.
As Bird struggles to understand the death of his beloved grandfather and his older brother’s drug addiction, he escapes into his art. Drawing is an outlet for Bird’s emotions and imagination, and provides a path to making sense of his world. In time, with the help of his grandfather’s friend, Bird finds his own special somethin’ and wings to fly.
Told with spare grace, Bird is a touching look at a young boy coping with real-life troubles. Readers will be heartened by Bird’s quiet resilience, and moved by the healing power of putting pencil to paper.
Bird, the recipient of Lee & Low's New Voices Award Honor, is the first picture book of both Zetta Elliot and Shadra Strickland.
Booktalk with author Zetta Elliott
Book Trailer
Video Podcast
- Awards
-
"Starred Review"
Kirkus Reviews
LEE & LOW New Voices Award Honor
Best of 2008, Kirkus Reviews
- Interest Level
- Grades 3 - 8
- Reading Level
- Grade 3
- Themes
- Art, African/African American Interest, Coping with Death, Family Traditions, Grandparents, Mentors, Siblings, Middle Grade
- Kirkus Reviews
- School Library Journal
- Booklist
- Publishers Weekly
- Bookpage
- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
- Yana P. Rodgers, Rutgers Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
- The Louisiana Advocate
- Education Resource Center, University of Delaware
- Kirkus Reviews Best of 2008
- The Brown Bookshelf
- Write for a Reader
Zetta Elliott is an accomplished poet, playwright, author, and African American studies scholar. As a young girl she loved to escape into a good book and began writing as a way to create “a world that was better than my own.” Elliott lives in Brooklyn, New York. To learn more about Zetta Elliot, visit her at ZettaElliott.com.
Shadra Strickland earned her MFA at New York’s School of Visual Arts in the Illustration as Visual Essay program. She currently freelances as an illustrator and a graphic designer, and uses drawing as a way to interpret her world. Strickland lives in Brooklyn, New York, and can be found on the Web at shadrastrickland.com.
