How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird

A GIFT FOR EVERYONE

A child wakes up, puts up an easel, picks up a brush and paints--paints a perch, a tree, the warmth of the sun and the sound of the summer breeze, and eventually a bird comes and sings. This is both the most personal and the most universal of books from Caldecott Medal winner Mordicai Gerstin: a fable about art, wonder, and creativity that has a meaning and a message for every reader. Universal appeal and illustration rich in warmth, color and feeling make this jewel of a picture book a lovely choice for the gift-giving season.

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977) was a French poet and screenwriter.

Mordicai Gerstein is the author and illustrator of The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, winner of the Caldecott Medal, and has had four books named New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year. Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He remembers being inspired as a child by images of fine art, which his mother cut out of Life magazine, and by children's books from the library: "I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures."

He attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and then got a job in an animated cartoon studio that sent him to New York, where he designed characters and thought up ideas for TV commercials. When a writer named Elizabeth Levy asked him to illustrate a humorous mystery story about two girls and a dog, his book career began, and soon he moved on to writing as well as illustrating. "I'm still surprised to be an author," he says. "I wonder what I'll write next?" Gerstein lives in Westhampton, Massachusetts.