Beautiful Blackbird

Bryan, A. (2003). Beautiful blackbird. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Genre: Multicultural Picture Book (Coretta Scott King Award 2004)

Grades: K-3 

Summary: Beautiful Blackbird is the adaptation of a story that comes from the people of Zambia. The story is about a group of birds that are beautiful colors of the rainbow. However, they are unhappy because none of them have any black markings. They all want black markings so they can be like Blackbird, the most beautiful of all birds. Ringdove is the first to ask Blackbird if he could give him a black marking. Blackbird tells Ringdove that just because he has a black marking, that will not make him be like Blackbird, that it’s what is on the inside that counts. However, Blackbird ends up marking Ringdove and all the other birds, which is where the markings on birds today originated. The story ends with the all the birds singing around Blackbird and they were singing about the beautiful color black.

Reflection: This story teaches two things: 1) it is what’s on the inside that makes someone what they are and 2) black is a beautiful color. Both themes are important to teach to elementary students in order to promote tolerance, especially in primarily Caucasian classrooms. The illustrations are bright and colorful and will capture the attention of young readers.