With only 14 words in an astonishing picture-book debut, author and artist Jorey Hurley takes youngest children through the life cycle of a robin. On every spread, just one word appears, and Hurley uses each composition to place young readers' focus on the main event.
Opposite the title page, a bird carries a twig. The red of its breast identifies it as a robin, and also matches the book's title. That twig becomes part of the first full spread (with one word, "nest," also in red). Rendered in Photoshop, the illustrations evoke collage compositions, with the layering of the tiny twig strands to create the birds' home, and simple geometric shapes--the oval blue egg, the cozy circle of the nest, and yellow triangles for the parents' beaks.
One word on the next page, "warm," prompts youngsters to play detective. The placement of the word also helps unlock the mystery. "Warm" appears across from the mother robin that incubates the (now unseen) egg; raindrops fall all around the nest, but pink buds on the branches indicate it's a warm spring rain. Next, a peach-toned featherless bird bursts through the blue egg ("hatch") as the parents look out at readers. Nothing else shows--no branches, no sky. The center attraction is the baby bird's emergence. In subsequent pages, the mother feeds the nestling a worm ("grow"), the offspring takes its first small leaps with speckled tangerine breast feathers that mark its maturity ("jump"), and soon the fledgling soars over the treetops ("fly").
Hurley shows the passage of the seasons through the family's summer "feast" on the fruit of their tree, the windy swirl of red, yellow and orange leaves ("blow"), and a family huddle beneath a light snowfall ("snuggle"). Hurley wisely keeps the focus on one family and one tree, but occasionally introduces other interlopers--a hummingbird sips at nectar, evidence of humans arrives via a kite ("surprise"). Hurley also introduces times of day: an owl flies by on a winter night ("sleep"), followed by a rosy sunrise ("awake"), with the birds' beaks open in song.
In addition to the scientific accuracy of Hurley's poignant compositions, her spare use of verbs open the way to a discussion of words that do double duty (as nouns--nest, feast, surprise--and even one that’s also an adjective--warm). In the closing spreads, a fourth robin alights on the tree, and the cycle begins again. A quiet masterpiece. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: In an astonishing picture-book debut, Jorey Hurley introduces youngest readers to a robin family, the four seasons and the cycle of life.