The Bird House

I love the softness of Rylant's stories. Some may call her tales silly, simple or corny. I claim her tales as good ole fashioned happy stories of a brighter time.

In this tale an elderly woman lives is a small cottage. She loves and feeds birds and in return they gift her with their presence.

A lonely, forlorn girl happens upon the cottage in the woods and notices the beauty of the woman and the birds.

The birds join together in writing the word GIRL in the sky. In a magical way, the birds, the woman and a lonely girl join together..And, live happily ever after,

What a lovely book to read on a rainy Friday afternoon, knowing that soon spring will occur and the promise of renewal begins again.

This was a classic Rylant-style story. I enjoyed it for its simplicity and its beauty. It was oddly magical as so many of her stories tend to be.

Words and pictures intertwine magically to tell the story of a homeless girl attracted to a house by its beautiful and rather unusally behaved birds and the woman who patiently awaits her. Simply perfect.

A homeless girl watches a country house from afar. The old woman who lives there faithfully tends to the wild birds who flock there. One day as the girl watches, the birds take to the sky and spell GIRL. This mysterious act brings the girl and the old woman together and creates a new family.

AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner: 4.1.1 Read, view, and listen for pleasure and personal growth; 4.1.2 read widely and fluently to make connections with self, the world, and previous reading

Rylant, C. & Moser, B. (1998). The bird house. New York: Blue Sky Press.

This is a cleverly crafted fairlytale set in modern times. Through nature a girl is reconciled with a home and a sense of belonging. It is enlightening, although character development is brief and minimal.

The Bird House is a Fairytale-esque, just like Kentucky Troll. It is about an abandoned girl who finds a blue house in the woods, and befriends the old woman who lives there. Like a Fairytale, this story starts off with "Once,...", which signifies that the author is telling a fictional story. Unlike most fairytales, this story provides no dialogue. This allows the reader to rely on the pictures along with the story itself to understand the plot of the story. The story itself does not actually include any life lesson, or something to be learned by the audience, which I found to be a little odd while I was reading. The author was quite literally just telling a story. The illustrations in this story are also beautiful and compliment the show more story well! show less

A cute read about a young girl that finds a beautiful blue house in the woods that is always is surrounded by birds. An old lady lives in the house, and as the young girl observes from afar, the old lady comes out of the house whenever the young girl is present. Eventually, the young girl and lady meet, because of the birds, and build a relationship.

There are numerous types of birds shared in this text that would be great for students to research. I would also like to share this story with my students for developing inferring skills. This is a great text for the development of inferences as the read has to read in between the lines to understand the young girl is homeless.