The Song of Spring

PreS-K—With the advent of spring, each bird has a song to attract a special friend, but one little bird has forgotten his own song and instead summons various farm animals with barks, oinks, and moos. The growing group of animals put their heads together to help the little bird remember his song until at last a "pretty girl bird" who is also in search of a friend appears to much celebration. Jonas's illustrations are deeply textured with elements of collage and recycled paper, while the animal characters are whimsical and expressive. The humor builds as increasingly unlikely animals, from a cow to a goat to a donkey, gather in the little bird's tree. The colors are muted, and the illustrations use expansive white space so that the animal sounds set in a stylized font seem to hang in the air with each invocation until the little bird realizes that his mishaps have allowed him to make not one but many new friends.