How to Heal a Broken Wing

by Bob Graham (Author) Bob Graham (Illustrator)

Reading Level: K − 1st Grade
In a spare urban fable, Bob Graham brings us one small boy, one loving family, and one miraculous story of hope and healing.

"No one saw the bird fall."

In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. In classic Bob Graham style, the beauty is in the details: the careful ministrations with an eyedropper, the bedroom filled with animal memorabilia, the saving of the single feather as a good-luck charm for the bird's return to the sky. Wistful and uplifting, here is a tale of possibility -- and of the souls who never doubt its power.
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Starred Review
Quietly, effectively, Graham tells the simple story of a boy who finds a fallen bird and nurses it back to health. The text is minimal...the art has effectively utilized the oversize format, filling it with full-page pictures, vertical and horizontal strips, and cartoon-style boxes in cloudy hues...Because this is such a visual piece...readers, young and old, will return to the story to look more deeply; they won't be disappointed.

Publishers Weekly

High above the city, no one heard the soft thud of feathers against glass, begins Graham (Let's Get a Pup! Said Kate). And no one notices the wounded pigeon that falls to the sidewalk until Will comes along. In this sparsely worded story, Will and his parents nurse the pigeon to health and then release him back into the sky. Graham breaks his watercolor-and-ink cartoons into full-bleed spreads and large and small comics-like panels, enabling him to dwell on each moment of tender loving care and to preach patience: the xs entered on a wall calendar and a series of drawings depicting the phases of the moon show readers that the pigeon's recovery takes a good month. The solemnity and earnestness with which the family goes about the task may exasperate some grown-ups; it's a pigeon, after all. But many readers will savor the way Will's parents unquestioningly rally around him, and appreciate the opportunity to imagine themselves as selfless healers. Ages 5 up. (Aug.)

Copyright 2008 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Kirkus

This isn’t as personal as Matteo Pericoli’s True Story of Stellina (2006), but it will draw a younger audience, and is imbued with the same sensitivity and sense of intimacy.

Review quotes




Bob Graham
Bob Graham is the author-illustrator of many acclaimed books for children.

Of How to Heal a Broken Wing, he says: "In troubled times, when many of us are losing contact with the natural world, I wanted to show that there is still hope in a coming generation of children who have curiosity and empathy with the world around them, and that care and attention can sometimes fix broken wings."

Bob Graham lives in Australia.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780763698416
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Candlewick Press (MA)
Publication date
July 18, 2017
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV002040 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Birds
JUV039220 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Values & Virtues
JUV023000 - Juvenile Fiction | Lifestyles | City & Town Life
Library of Congress categories
-

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