The One About the Blackbird

Written by Melanie Florence & illustrated by Matt James

Hardcover

$18.99

$17.97

4 - 8

Reading age

Page count

Oct 21, 2025

Publication date

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What's This Book About

Publisher Summary

A gorgeous picture book about the connections created through music, and how music can reach loved ones with dementia. A young boy learns to play guitar from his grandfather, and the one about the blackbird is their favorite song. Years later, the boy visits his grandfather, and while his grandfather doesn’t recognize him, now grown-up, he does still remember how to hold a guitar. A beautiful full circle moment ensues when the boy plays his grandfather their favorite song. The moving text and dynamic, gorgeous art celebrate the connection that music can create between two people and the joy that music, and the shared love of it, can bring at any age.

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The Creatives Behind the Book

Author

Melanie Florence

Melanie Florence is a writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto. She was close to her grandfather as a child, a relationship that sparked her interest in writing about Indigenous themes and characters. She is the author of Missing Nimama, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and is a Forest of Reading Golden Oak Finalist. Her other books include Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Residential Schools and the teen novels He Who Dreams, The Missing, One Night, and Rez Runaway. For more information, visit www.melanieflorence.com.

Illustrator

Matt James

Matt James is a painter, author/illustrator and musician whose many highly acclaimed children’s books include Yellow Moon, Apple Moon by Pamela Porter (New Mexico Book Award); I Know Here by Laurel Croza (Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award) and its companion volume, From There to Here; and The Stone Thrower by Jael Ealey Richardson. Matt’s illustrations for Northwest Passage, a stunning tribute to the iconic Stan Rogers’ song, won the Governor General’s Literary Award. The Funeral is the first picture book he has written and illustrated. Matt lives in Toronto.