A Home for Bird

"Stead (Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat) imagines what happens when Vernon, a sweetheart of a toad, takes an interest in a silent, unmoving blue bird with an oversize beak, button eyes, and striped peg legs. 'Bird is shy,' Vernon explains to Skunk and Porcupine, 'but also a very good listener.' Small panel illustrations of Vernon attempting to amuse Bird, who lies blank and staring wherever Vernon sets him down, draw immediate smiles. Determined to find Bird's home, Vernon takes Bird down the river in a teacup. Vernon's ideas about possible living places for Bird — a mailbox, a nest filled with eggs, a telephone wire — are misses, but Bird's home finally turns up in a place both unexpected and perfectly natural. Stead creates characters that make readers care; Vernon's compassion and faith have near-spiritual dimensions. And the scribbled artwork brims with small delights, like the attentive expressions of Skunk and Porcupine, draped with string — they've quietly appropriated Vernon's yo-yo. But it's the way Vernon consistently sees only the best in Bird that makes this story a keeper. Ages 3 – 8. Agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Literary Management. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"A deeply satisfying story that speaks to the universal desires to be nurtured and to find a home." Kirkus (starred review)

"Stead creates characters that make readers care; Vernons compassion and faith have near-spiritual dimensions. And the scribbled artwork brims with small delights." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Philip C. Stead is the author of the 2011 Caldecott Medal book, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, which was illustrated by his wife, Erin E. Stead. His most recent picture book, Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat, was the recipient of starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Philip lives with his wife in Ann Arbor, Michigan.