THE TRUE STORY OF STELLINA

This tender free-verse poem commemorates a baby finch found on a Manhattan street corner by Holly, the author’s future wife. The mother finch having vanished, Holly takes Stellina home; the two (later three, with Matteo) become constant companions, as Stellina learns to feed herself, and then to fly—always seeming to ask, “And now? What’s going to happen now?” Singing along with the piano, sometimes lighting on the artist’s head or pencil, often sitting pensively at the windowsill, she becomes a permanent resident for the eight years of her life. Pericoli pairs his brief, intimate narrative to elegantly composed views of a small, round, alert bird surrounded by homey details that quickly fade out into white space. A beguiling, urban companion for Christine O’Connell George’s Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems (2004). (Picture book. 7-9)