The Starling’s Song - Octavie Wolters - ★★★

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Octavie Wolters

TRANSLATOR: Michele Hutchison

GENRE: Children's Picture Book.

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: Decent but not great. Expected more because I love starlings.

Story Synopsis:

While flying, the starling recognises the beauty of nature and decides to sing a song about the loveliness around him. When he shares this idea with some other friends, they all pop in with advice about what to include in his song. Ultimately, the starling takes note of all their points and composes a song including his thoughts as well as those of his friends.

This book was originally written in Dutch in 2021. The English translation is to be released on 12th September 2023.

I like the thought behind the book. Starlings love to imitate tunes from around them, and this concept has been expanded into a starling’s taking ideas from his friends while composing an ode to the beauty of nature. However, in terms of implementation, the book left me with mixed feelings.

🐦 While I liked the suggestions given to the starling by various birds, the fact also is that he didn’t ask for their opinion. He merely told them his plan, they offered their suggestions without any prompting, and to top it, the starling incorporates every single suggestion into his song without deliberating over any. I am not sure what message this sends to children. All through our life, we will meet people who love to offer their unsolicited opinion. Somewhere, we must draw the line about listening to others’ opinions and following them blindly.

🐦 The content is a bit too abstract for the target age group of 2-5 years. The sentences and the vocabulary are also complicated for this age level. The story might work better for a slightly older reading group, but I don’t think it will make much sense to toddlers.

🐦 The birds’ opinions have much depth in them. Through their advice to the starling, kids will also learn how to look at the ordinary in a different way. Then again, this is assuming an older reading age. Definitely not for toddlers.

🐦 For a story about a song, the writing is quite stilted. There is not much fluidity in the sound of the sentences. (It’s possible that the text worked better in the original and lost something in translation.)

🐦 A central character such as a starling could have lent itself to some amazing scenes such as borrowed tunes from other birds or murmurations. But the story is too basic, restricted only to getting and implementing content ideas for the song.

🐦 The art is the best feature of the book, when seen with adult eyes (of some adults, not this adult.) Sketched in linocut style, every page makes an impact with its graphics. There is one scene where the starling is speaking with a kingfisher next to a river. The illustration on this page has a water reflection that includes the reflected text also: amazingly drawn! However, keeping in mind the target audience of the book, I find the graphics quite limited. Imagine having such gorgeous birds as a starling, a peacock, an owl, and many more, but seeing all of them only in black & white. The only dash of colour is the tiny yellow on the starling’s beak and feet. Just a few days ago, a Goodreads user told me that in Europe, graphics in children’s books go by ‘less is more’. Assuming that to be true, these graphics are certainly apt for the European audience. But I am from India, the land of colourful vibrancy. I need an explosion of colour in the picture books I read. B&W sketches will rarely impress me.

All in all, the book was nice, but it stays at just that level: ‘nice’. No long-term impact, no ‘wow’ feeling after I completed it. It might still work for 5-8 year olds.

My thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Starling’s Song”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.