Fun and delightfully illustrated account of an imaginative and anxious young bird's reluctance to fly. ( )

almost wordless! ( )

An adorable baby bird is reluctant to fly for the first time, but with a "push" from his mother eventually takes the leap. In the moments coming up to his leap he pictures every scary thing a bird can think of such as: cats, wolves and gators and keeps saying "nope." Once he starts to fall from the tree he finds his wings and finally flies. He sees many beautiful things on his trip and realizes how great it is, "yep." ( )

A baby bird balks at the prospect of his first flight in this amusing and ultimately heartwarming picture-book, which uses immensely expressive and engaging artwork to tell a story that is mostly wordless. Save for our reluctant flyer's repeated "nopes," squawked out each time he draws back from taking that plunge over the side of his nest, and a few sound words, there is no text here. It falls to the artwork to move the story along, chronicling his many fears, and his mother's simultaneous sympathy and tough love. In the end, she must shove him out of the nest to get him to take that first flight...

I chuckled aloud on more than one occasion as I read Nope!, so colorful and entertaining was Drew Sheneman's artwork. Wordless - or mostly wordless - stories are quite difficult to pull off, so I am all the more impressed that this is the artist's first book! Mama and baby bird's expressions are just priceless, communicating terror and recalcitrance on the one hand, and amused sympathy on the other. The conclusion of the tale, in which our little avian hero discovers the joys of flight, is all the more satisfying for the resistance he earlier displayed to the idea of leaving the nest. Reassuring and entertaining all at once, this is a picture-book I would recommend to any child who enjoys humorous stories, or tales of young children (I mean birds) getting past their fears. ( )