Kevin and the Blackbirds

In a poignant and lavishly illustrated storybook, two revered creators give wing to the ancient Irish tale of a wild child with a heart of gold.

In lean times, a boy’s parents send him to a monastery to be cared for. After study and prayer, the monks let young Kevin run and play in the woods and fields. But the time comes when he must set aside childish ways. Shut in his lonely cell, yearning for home and the freedom of the outdoors, Kevin reaches through the window toward the light as two blackbirds land in and feather the nest of his hands. Kevin waits, day after day, for their eggs to hatch, and it’s not until the chicks spread tiny wings and fly off—three new wild things gone out into the world—that he can rest and the monks can see what they must do. In a moving first collaboration, a Hans Christian Andersen Award winner and a two-time Kate Greenaway Medal winner transform a traditional Irish tale—about the love of nature and the mercies of letting go—and make it soar.

David Almond is a beloved author of picture books, novels, and graphic novels for children, including A Way to the Stars, illustrated by Gill Smith; Brand New Boy, illustrated by Marta Altés; The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers; My Dad’s a Birdman and The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon, both illustrated by Polly Dunbar; The Tale of Angelino Brown, illustrated by Alex T. Smith; War Is Over, illustrated by David Litchfield; and many more. His many awards include a Carnegie Medal, two Whitbread Children’s Book Awards, an Eleanor Farjeon Award, a Michael L. Printz Award, and a Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international prize for children’s book authors. David Almond lives in England.

P.J. Lynch has won numerous awards, including the Mother Goose Award, the Christopher Award three times, and the Kate Greenaway Medal twice, first for The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski and again for When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest. He recently illustrated Eoin Colfer’s Three Tasks for a Dragon and is the author-illustrator of The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower and The Haunted Lake. P.J. Lynch lives in Dublin.