books
A POET’S BIRD GARDEN
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007
Kirkus Reviews
“. . . Montenegro’s inspiration is a painting she loved as a child, van Gogh’s Poet’s Garden, although rhythm and design hint of an Eastern European village and culture. Dense black curves in the tree trunks, branches and cage, echo in the grillwork and play against the watercolor wash of greens and golden two-dimensional forms. Beautiful to look at and to contemplate the serenity contained within.” (Picture book. 4-7)
Booklist
“When Natalie opens the door of her bird’s cage, Chirpie flies straight to the branch of a tree. Natalie asks some local poets to help lure Chirpie back, and they try all sorts of tricks. Nothing works, even when the poets make a beautiful bird garden, and Natalie offers an unraveled old sweater: “A bird loves to build a beautiful nest / String and yarn make a soft place to rest.” Then she finds the cause of the problem: a cat lurking under a bush. After Natalie chases it away, Chirpie comes down and, later, the beautiful garden fills with other birds. The lively spare poetic lines, many in rhyme, are nicely matched with the bright line-and-watercolor, double-page spreads, which show the city garden in a bustling, diverse neighborhood in wide circles, true to the bird’s-eye view from the tree.” --Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal
“This pleasant tale of neighborhood, friendship, and creative problem solving features the child who first appeared in A Bird About to Sing (Houghton, 2003). When Natalie leaves Chirpie’s cage door open, the blue-and-white bird flies to a tree and won’t come down. A delightful response to the crisis begins when the poets arrive: “You need not worry. Haven’t you heard?/There are oodles of ways to lure a bird,” Priyanka announces. Each writer has a creative, but unsuccessful, solution-stand like a statue, wiggle like a worm, sing like a bird, be patient and wait for her to become homesick- but Monica encourages everyone to imagine “If I were Chirpie,/fancy and free,/what beauty would beckon me/down from the tree?” The answer is a garden, which this wonderful cast of multicultural characters creates in the middle of a big city neighborhood, attracting not only Chirpie, but many other birds as well. Montenegro’s naive gouache illustrations tell the story visually, encouraging young children to retell it in their own words.” -Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
For an interview about A Poet’s Bird Garden with Julie Danielson at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, please visit http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=1198
A BIRD ABOUT TO SING, 2003
Houghton Mifflin
Featured on Reading Rainbow, 2004
Booklist
Natalie is a natural poet, but when she’s asked to read her poetry out loud, she’s as silent as a cloud. Natalie’s teacher Monica tries to encourage her by taking her downtown to a poetry reading. Gunther reads his poem with a booming voice; Katerina, with a little squeak; and Edgar dances his words. When it’s Natalie’s turn, however, she freezes yet again: “And suddenly I feel like a bird / who’s lost its voice and like a bird/ I wish to fly far,far away / to the top of the tallest tree.” Despite her stage fright, the poets are kind to her. One of them, tells her, “When the time is right,/ the bird begins to sing.” And sing she does, on the bus back home—reading her poem to Monica and to everyone else! The surreal, stylized paintings of a fascinating cast of multicultural characters are awash in lovely, warm color. Shy birds and budding poets alike may be emboldened by this picture book about both the private and public nature of creativity. —Karin Snelson
Kirkus Reviews
“Poetry is the vehicle here but the message is more about the creative spirit and feeling free to express one’s self. Language teachers should take note.”
Just One More Book!
For a podcast discussion and review of A Poet’s Bird Garden and A Bird About to Sing, please visit Just One More Book!
SWEET TOOTH
Houghton Mifflin, 1995
Parent’s Choice Honor Book Award
Publisher’s Weekly
“We were clowns, my father and I, in our own family circus,” opens this fanciful tale about a girl and her lion. In lyrical yet curiously formal first-person narration, the child describes the highlight of the performance: “I beat the drum and we pull back the curtain for Sweet Tooth, my most beautiful lion.” But Sweet Tooth is a frisky fellow; before long his antics get him in trouble and he is banished from the circus. The girl no longer beats her drum “with feeling” and the audience realizes that the performers’ “hearts were not in it.” She and her father sell their circus and “finish out the winter sleeping on the cold, cold ground.” Humans and lion are dramatically reunited as Montenegro (One Stuck Drawer) softly delivers her message about the rejuvenating power of friendship and the importance of loyalty. More immediate are her luminous, stylized illustrations, which take playful liberties with perspective. Ages 4-8
One Stuck Drawer
Houghton Mifflin, 1991
Parent’s Choice Honor Book Award
New York Times Book Review
“The secondhand dresser Sophia loves has one stuck drawer; even so, she doesn’t have the money to pay for it. The secret, of course, is hidden in the drawer. It’s a strange fantasy, illustrated in suitable dark, mysterious shades.”
Smithsonian Book Review
“The rewards of loyalty and perseverance, recounted with winning, stylish watercolors.”
Detroit Free Press
One Stuck Drawer by Laura Nyman Montenegro is the author’s first picture book, but one that is a match for the classics. A fresh story tells of a poor girl who earns a reward that no one else could see in an old stuck drawer. Ages 2-5
Booklist
“Love may be universal, but love between people and inanimate objects seems to be the peculiar province of children’s literature. This quirky little tale concerns the friendship between a girl and a dresser with one stuck drawer. After spending a long time in the basement of a used-furniture store, the flawed and unwanted dresser has the good fortune to meet Sophia. She loves the dresser and takes it home, but, unfortunately, she lacks the money to finish paying for it. When the repossessors come, Sophia clings to the dresser by its stuck drawer, which unexpectedly opens to spill out a package. Inside the package is just what Sophia needs to reclaim her friend: a magical tiger costume that she can wear to earn money as a street dancer. Montenegro’s paintings in watercolor and crosshatched ink have an effectively eerie quality enhanced by selective use of distortion and odd perspective. A palette of muted browns and grays creates a sense of fear and isolation for Sophia and the dresser that later contrasts with the golden tiger-tones of the happy reunion. -Leone McDermott