Basil's Birds

by Lynn Rowe Reed

Overview

Uh-oh! Some birds start building a nest on Perch Elementary’s flagpole. Then above the school’s doorway and even in the eaves spout! Finally, they find the perfect spot—the bald head of Basil Berkmeister, the school’s custodian! Should Basil get rid of his new hairdo...or adopt them as if they’re his own children? The birds do come to think of him as their father...and even give him a surprise on Father’s Day. Silly mixed-media illustrations complement this one-of-a-kind story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477816103
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	01/21/2014
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,056,986
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.60(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	AD590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lynn Rowe Reed lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Editorial Reviews

A school custodian carefully tends a bird's nest he finds on his head, and when the baby birds fly away, empty nest syndrome hits him hard. Basil Berkmeister offers the nestlings worm pie to lure them back, but it's not until Father's Day that he discovers how much they care. The birds are made of fired clay, and Reed (Please Don't Upset P.U. Zorilla) mixes photo images and naïve-style painting for Basil's puppetlike body and paintbrush hair. His teeth are dots of white paint, making him look a little like a Mexican Day of the Dead mask. His tender care for his charges provides the satisfaction in this offbeat tale, and his willingness to make the most of his odd circumstances supplies the laughs, as when he discovers the nest is a conversation starter. “Look!” he says to a woman in a polka-dot bikini top, pointing to the mother bird on his head. “Her suit is sort of like yours!” (Sure enough, the bird has a matching miniature bikini.) Love spreads more love, Basil finds, and readers will feel it, too. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2—When birds decide to build their nest at Perch Elementary, the principal calls the school janitor. Basil gets tired trying to shoo them away and falls asleep on the playground. When he wakes, the birds have built a nest on his bald head. It is a work of art, and Basil enjoys and protects it. Little birds hatch, and he becomes a serious parent, even enrolling in a class on bird care at the local college. Predictably "one day, they fluttered and flapped and flew away." Basil spends a lonely year, inconsolable despite the kindness of his friends. Then spring returns and so do the birds, writing "Happy Father's Day" in the sky and building three nests on his head. Brightly painted clay birds and photographs of the nest and worms are scanned into Reed's gouache illustrations. Her childlike paintings are done in flat spring colors, often showing faces in profile and bodies so loose jointed that they hardly seem earthbound. Pair this story with Mo Willems's There Is a Bird on Your Head! (Hyperion, 2007) for smiles all around.—Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN

School Library Journal