Janell Cannon

A tiny baby fruit bat gets separated from her mother in a thunderstorm and winds up in a bird’s nest. She tries her hardest to be a bird - stays awake during the day, eats bugs, stands right-side-up. But nothing works. When she and her adopted siblings leave the nest they run into a group of bats who show Stellaluna who she really is.

A little darker at the beginning than I remembered, so I skimmed over some parts while reading it to my niece for the first time. After that she knew what was show more going to happen so I felt more comfortable with the fright and getting separated from her mother. I really enjoy that everyone in this story is nice. The bird family is very welcoming to Stellaluna and the bird mother takes care of her just like her own kids, without question or ridicule. Stellaluna's efforts to be something she's not come mostly from herself, not external forces (aside from a couple comments about her being upside down). I also enjoyed the reversal at the end when the bird siblings meet the group of bats and try to fit in. Still a nice book, after all these years, with beautiful, vivid, and biologically accurate art. And I’m always happy to see a positive representation of bats. show less

I would give this book a 5/5. This was one of my favorite books growing up for several reasons. I love this book because of the language Cannon uses and how descriptive she is. Even in the very first sentence Cannon writes, "in a warm and sultry forest [...]", and I love the imagery this gives. Also, Cannon's use of both inner and outer monologue makes the book even more interesting and personal, "I will fly all day, Stellaluna told herself. Then no one will see how clumsy I am", Cannon show more wrote. This allows the reader to get a good idea of what is going on in Stellaluna's head and what is happening around her. Lastly, I like this book because of the message it portrays about how different it is to experience life in someone else's shoes, especially in her case when she just lost her mother. show less

I adored this book! The first reason I liked this book is for its cultural and rustic illustrations. The book’s setting is on an African savannah and follows a hyena on an outing where she gets bullied by other savannah animals. The illustrations throughout the book are similar to those you’d find in an informational book that details African culture, except drawn using finely tipped colored pencils. This makes the setting come to life even more than simply illustrating the characters, show more making the reader more engaged with the story. The illustrations also help the reader visualize the emotions of the characters within the story. At times where the main character is upset or embarrassed, her ears are down and she is frowning. In contrast, when the main character and her mother are reunited at the end, they both are depicted with smiles. I like this aspect of the book because it helps me, a visual and kinesthetic learner, better understand what the characters are thinking and feeling. I also like this book for the informational section at the end. Titled “Meet the Hyena Family,” the section details physical attributes of all of the animals found throughout the book, which ultimately explains why the animals were so bothered by being told they look a certain way. For example, the lion of the story made fun of the hyena’s hair because the lion was told by another animal that his mane looked “mangy.” The section in the back of the book explained that some lions have big, beautify manes, while others have small, ruffled ones. The author put a spin on that and made the lion of the story self-conscious about his small, thinning mane, which is what led to him calling out the hyena’s hair. The big idea of this book is bullying is not a positive act, even if you were bullied first. If you find yourself bullying someone, think about why you are doing it and address that reason instead of spreading the harmful act onto others. show less

I like this one not only because it's a sweet story--it's really unfortunate when a kids' book isn't at least that--but because of its psychological realness, with Stellaluna the bat and the three bird kids flung together and needing to figure things out, gravitating close to one another and then shifting apart to grow on their own and then settling into a happy separate-together harmony. And with it the way the mama bird shifts from protector to antagonist without changing her fundamental show more caring nature, the way the bats welcome Stellaluna in as one of their own but don't force her to conform, let her share her own wisdom about where she's been and what she's seen and be friends with birds and live authentically. I can imagine this book being really meaningful to foster kids, and in a broader, less pointed way to children, say, growing up in a multicultural immigrant city and starting to figure out what it means that they and their friends inhabit the same public world and culturally different private ones, and how to respect their differences and negotiate them. In that sense it's timely for children here in Vancouver in 2017, where the mirage of a white monoculture has definitively fallen away and where the future will, as futures always are but as we never quite expect, be different from the past. In that sense it's got sociological realness too. It touches gently on social tensions in the same way as it touches gently on other things toddlers sometimes find hard to navigate, like the food chain.

And then finally just the feel and the atmosphere--the cool moonlight of Stellaluna's night flights, the gawky flailing of her wings as she starts growing into her body and realizes she's a bat not a bird, and learns to be who she is. The happy eerie magic of sonar. Even! the informational backgrounder at the end of the book (of course you skip those at story time usually) in which you learn that 25% of all mammal species are bats, that little bats eat meat and look like mice and big bats eat fruit and look like foxes and can have a six-foot wingspan! (I think I knew most of that but it's good to contemplate it.) Lovely bedtime book. show less