My Beautiful Birds…sheds a light on the ongoing Syrian Refugee crisis and its effects on its children….[It] shows the reality of refugee camps and ultimately provides hope for people in search of a new place in life….As beautiful as the story is, the illustrations are even more so. Del Rizzo creates her illustrations from acrylic paint and polymer clay, so the texture is out of this world. With each page flip it feels like we can reach out and touch the illustrations….I would love to talk about each and every spread but this is a book worth seeing for yourself.
Intricately detailed and lifelike, the polymer clay and mixed-media illustrations combine with the understated first-person narrative to communicate Sami’s circumstances, heartbreak, and healing process. Through this emotionally accessible story, inspired by an article about a real boy who fled to Jordan’s Za’atari camp, readers begin to understand Sami’s plight, and to gain awareness and insight into the lives of the many children facing calamity across the globe.
If you’ve been wondering how to present the refugee crisis to children without losing faith in humanity, take a look at this graceful, even uplifting book. Del Rizzo’s stunning dimensional art, made mostly of clay, can’t help feeling playful, and the story brims with hope. We see Sami, a Syrian boy, on the roof of his house, where he lovingly tends his pigeons. But soon his family is walking away from their burning city to a refugee camp. He can barely speak, until he begins painting his birds, then meets new ones, and a new friend.
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Image From “The Crane Girl”Credit
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