BEAUTIFUL BLACKBIRD: ART & DANCE ACTIVITY
Best Users: Librarians, Educators, Early Childhood Educators, Home Learners
Best Audience: Children Grades 00-03
This Activity and Read Aloud comes via the mighty Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival. The festival will be celebrating books from across the African diaspora throughout the Summer! Look for more engagement materials at BeautifulBlackbird.com.
READ ALOUD & INTERVIEW WITH PICTURE BOOK LEGEND, ASHLEY BRYAN
ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES
In the Coretta Scott King award-winning picture book Beautiful Blackbird, the birds of African—”all colors of the rainbow”—”broke out of the circle for the Show Claw Slide.”
Want your readers to show their claws? Follow the instructions and/or video to make origami bird claws or puppets!
DOWNLOAD Beautiful Blackbird: Show Claw Slide: Origami Bird Claws (PDF)
Want your readers to DANCE the Show Claw Slide? Follow the dance lesson with South Sudanese American dancer and actress Veeva Banga!!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Beautiful Blackbird
by Ashley Bryan
Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers
ISBN-13: 9780689847318
Age Range: 4 – 8 Years
Coretta Scott King Award winner Ashley Bryan’s adaptation of a tale from the Ila-speaking people of Zambia resonates both with rhythm and the tale’s universal meanings—appreciating one’s heritage and discovering the beauty within. His cut-paper artwork will charm and delight readers of all ages.
Black is beautiful, uh-huh!
Long ago, Blackbird was voted the most beautiful bird in the forest. The other birds, who were colored red, yellow, blue, and green, were so envious that they begged Blackbird to paint their feathers with a touch of black so they could be beautiful too. Although Black-bird warns them that true beauty comes from within, the other birds persist and soon each is given a ring of black around their neck or a dot of black on their wings—markings that detail birds to this very day.
