Title: The Birdman
Author:  Veronika Martenova Charles
Illustrator: Annouchka Gravel Galouchko; Stephan Daigle
Publisher:  Tundra Books
ISBN:  0-88776-740-0
Year: 2006
Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level: 4.7

Concepts: human resources, natural resources, scarcity, producers, poverty, markets

Summary:   This story, set in Calcutta, is based on a real person. Noor Nobi sews clothes to support his three children. When they are lost in an accident, he is overwhelmed with despair and unable to work. Weeks later, while walking through the market, he notices the cages crammed with birds, and he longs to free them. With the little he has in his pocket, he buys one of them and releases it in the shade of a banyan tree. Resolved, he works harder than ever before to earn money to buy more birds. With a new mission in his heart, he returns the next week to purchase as many as he can, nursing the frail ones back to health so he can set them free. The author includes background information on Noor Nobi and photographs of her visit to India and to the tailor's workshop. 

Source of Summary: School Library Journal