Sparrow Jack - Hardcover

Mordicai Gerstein is the author and illustrator of The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, winner of the Caldecott Medal, and has had four books named New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year. Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He remembers being inspired as a child by images of fine art, which his mother cut out of Life magazine, and by children’s books from the library: “I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures.”  He attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and then got a job in an animated cartoon studio that sent him to New York, where he designed characters and thought up ideas for TV commercials. When a writer named Elizabeth Levy asked him to illustrate a humorous mystery story about two girls and a dog, his book career began, and soon he moved on to writing as well as illustrating. “I’m still surprised to be an author,” he says. “I wonder what I’ll write next?” Gerstein lives in Westhampton, Massachusetts.

Kindergarten-Grade 2-This pleasing blend of history and legend tells the story of a man who brought sparrows to America in the 1860s. John Bardsley loved these birds, though they were considered pests in England. He wound up in Philadelphia, where countless inchworms plagued the plants of the city. Bardsley journeyed back to his homeland and returned with a thousand sparrows that soon collected the worms for their hungry chicks. Gerstein's whimsical illustrations capture the spirited energy of this intriguing story. Crawling inchworms adorn the borders of several frames, and the sparrows finally reach outside the frame to eat them in the satisfying conclusion. Sparrow Jack, as he finally came to be called, is portrayed as a determined, ingenious, and endearing figure. The various expressions of the other people in the story reflect disgust, skepticism, surprise, and delight, depending on their reactions to Jack's ideas. The narrative tells just enough of the story to get readers firmly on the side of the inventive bird lover. The foreword, along with Jack's dream of talking sparrows, makes it clear that the fact-based story includes pleasing touches of imagination. Though the citizens of Philadelphia eventually complain about them, "those noisy little pests, the sparrows," are clearly heroes in this tale. An enjoyable and unusual bit of history.
Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR
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