The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown illustrated by Christian Robinson

 

We sing to you because you're dead feather bird

And we buried you in the ground with ferns and flowers

Because you will never fly again in the sky

Way up high little dead bird.

A group of children head into a park with their kite and dog. On the grass they see a small bird and it is dead. 

"But it had not been dead for long - it was still warm and its eyes were closed. The children felt with their fingers for the quick beat of the bird's heart in its breast. But there was no heart beating. That was how they knew it was dead."

Following a western convention of burial the children decide the bury the small bird in the woods near the park and then they sing a sweet song, cry a few tears and lay flowers on the little grave. On a stone they write - here lies a bird that is dead.

"But they were glad they had found it, because now they could dig a grave in the woods and bury it. They could have a funeral and sing to it the way grown-up people did when someone died."

Margaret Wise Brown uses such beautiful words to describe the way the children prepare the little grave.

"They put warm sweet-ferns in the bottom of the grave. And they wrapped the bird in grapevine leaves. ... they put more ferns on top of it, and little white violets, and yellow star flowers."

Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952) wrote this book in 1938 - yes that is 85 years ago. But it was not published until after her death. This story was never published during her lifetime because the subject matter was considered too dark, but she always advocated for it to be released. The 1958 version was illustrated by Remy Charlip.  In 2016 Christian Robinson added his own very special illustrations. In 2016 a local bookshop opened in a suburb near my home and in 2016 they added this book to their shop shelves. In June 2023 this terrific little local bookshop closed. As you would expect they had a wonderful book sale over the final days so I headed over to snag a few bargains. After waiting seven years The Dead Bird, which had sat on the shop shelves all that time, has now found a new home (with me). I know all of this because the price sticker lists the date the book came to the store - 26th August, 2016.

I read that Margaret Wise Brown wrote this book based on the ideas of something called 'The Here and Now' movement but I have not been able to discover more about this which I assume was something from the 1930s in the US and I did read it aimed to celebrate ordinary moments in life.

In this post at Seven Impossible things before Breakfast you can read about all the decisions Christian Robinson had to make for the cover and illustrations for this book. In this post based on her podcast Betsy Bird compares the 1958 version of The Dead Bird with the newer one illustrated by Christian Robinson. 

In the US there are some very harsh decisions being made about banning children's books. I do hope this does not happen here in Australia. I would not hesitate to add this book to a school or public library collection. I wonder why it languished in the bookshop for so long - the cover is appealing - so perhaps the issue was the word 'dead' on the cover especially since it is black and in capital letters. You can see inside this book here. 

This is such an honest book about death and grief. It captures that intense wave of sorrow upon finding a dead animal, the immediate connection children have to that creature and the importance of following through in a process of loss. The writing is superb, capturing these complex feelings but also not endowing them with too much weight. There is also a feeling of time passing and life moving on, even though the sadness was so large at first. Waking Brain Cells

Please think about this review comment - it is one I heartily endorse and so does my friend from Kinderbookswitheverything:

While generations of parents have discovered this book during a period of loss we think the book is best introduced in the normal rotation of stories as a wonderful way to help children start to think about the deep mystery that is life.

Companion books:

Fox: A circle of life story

A Last Goodbye

The bear and the wild cat