NESTS

From Spain, a warm assurance that “every nest is as special as every bird.”

The words (in uncredited translation) and pictures are mostly about birds and their nests, but perceptive readers will understand that the real subject is closer to home. After filling early pages with hundreds of fuzzy-edged animal figures that look like small stuffed toys, Colombo gives Márquez’s terse observations tongue-in cheek twists—placing nests and fancifully rendered nestlings atop a giraffe or in a crocodile’s mouth to reflect the fact that they are sometimes built “in very high spots” or “in dangerous places,” for instance. Some nests, he writes, “feel small,” others “crowded.” But even when not in the best possible spot (as, here, an empty tuna can), “for the bird family that calls it home…it’s the best nest in the world.” Literal-minded audiences may be more attuned to the less-elliptical approach in similarly themed titles such as Carson Ellis’ Home (2015) or Cynthia Rylant and Wendy Anderson Halperin’s Let’s Go Home (2002), but the illustrator’s puckish sense of humor and the narrative’s understated cadences combine to give this import an engagingly intimate tone.

Sweet, funny, subtle.