Beautiful Blackbird

Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan
2004 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award

I love this author/illustrator, Ashley Bryan. He shows up at storytelling festivals sometimes because his reading/writing style is very much based on oral storytelling in the African tradition. He's a fun person to hear, and I have liked his books a long time. In fact he has had quite a few Coretta Scott King awards over the years, and when I checked and realized that he had NOT ever won a Caldecott Award, I was surprised.

Anyhow, Beautiful Blackbird  is illustrated in brilliantly colored paper cuts. The story is told in both regular storytelling with little rhyming songs interspersed:
"Beak to beak, peck, peck, peck,
Spread your wings, stretch your neck.
Black is beautiful, uh-huh!
Black is beautiful, uh-huh!"

The story is based on a traditional tale from Zambia. It tells the story of how the birds got their markings. They started all the colors of the rainbow, but no markings at all, each bird was a single color "From the tops of their heads to the tips of the tails. . . " The rainbow colored birds all thought Blackbird was the most beautiful and asked Blackbird to color them black.

Blackbird said, "Color on the outside is not what's on the inside. You don't act like me. You don't eat like me. You don't get down in the groove and move your feet like me. But come tomorrow to the Sun-Up Dance. I'll brew some blackening in my medicine gourd."

And next morning he decorated them all. But before he did he said "We'll see the difference a touch of black can make. Just remember, whatever I do, I'll be me and you'll be you."

Fun tid bit---- the scissors that is collaged in with the paper cuts on the end papers is the scissors that his mom used when she was sewing and embroidering, and the scissors he now uses for his paper cuts.

If I had to recommend ONE Ashley Bryan book, this wouldn't be the one, but I do like it. Dancing Granny is my personal favorite and I don't think it ever won any awards at all! I also like Beat the Story Drum, Pum Pum.