Beautiful Blackbird Story & Art

Description

Join Island Readers & Writers and the Wendell Gilley Museum during school vacation week on Friday, Feb. 24 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for a special celebration of the late Ashley Bryan's Beautiful Blackbird, an adaptation of a tale from the Ila-speaking people of Zambia about appreciating one's own heritage and discovering the beauty within.

We’ll read the story together during an interactive story time, then make our own beautiful birds with cut paper and other materials at the Museum, 4 Herrick Road in Southwest Harbor. Story-time open to all ages; craft suitable for ages 5 and older. There is no fee to attend. Registration is requested, but walk-ins will be welcome. Sign up at https://islandreadersandwriters.org/events/2nd-annual-beautiful-blackbird-day/ or www.wendellgilleymuseum.org/events.

This is the second year for this annual event. Ashley Bryan (1923–2022) was an award-winning and acclaimed author, painter, printmaker, illustrator, puppet maker and storyteller whose career spanned more than six decades. Much of his art was created from his home on Islesford. Bryan’s vibrantly colored collage and paper-cut illustrations adorned the pages of some 50 books, folktales and poetry collections by acclaimed writers including Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni and Walter Dean Myers. He won dozens of awards for his books including multiple Coretta Scott King awards, multiple American Library Association Honors, the Boston Globe Horn Book award, the Lupin Award from the Maine Library Association, The Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Illustration, and the Newbery Honor.