Photo by Jason Poole

Neighborhood children made more than 150 friends at the 2015 Washington Heights Harvest Festival in Fort Tryon Park! At least, I know that that many children made birds with clay, pipe cleaners and feathers, and tucked them into leaf and twig lined paper bag nests, to help me celebrate the publication of my early reader picture book Crow Made a Friend!

The nests were made with lunch-sized paper bags, with the edges rolled down to make cozy nests, the clay was Crayola air dry clay. I collected twigs and leaves from the gardener’s brush piles, and provided pipe cleaners and feathers in different colors. All the kids, even the very tiniest ones, had success making a bird. Some made tiny eggs with clay for their nests. It was fun to see all the kids walking and cradling their creations as they enjoyed the fair.

Special thanks to my pal Sue Seitner, who first had the idea of making little birds, and for helping me help the kids make their creations. And thanks to Sam and Daniel who hauled all my stuff around!

Thank you to Holiday House who provided Crow paper doll pages for kids and parents to take away to make at home.

And congratulations to the Festival organizers–it was a really lovely day out.

There were so many inventive nest and bird creators! Photo by Nick Katsivelos

Taking a break to read all about Crow on a chilly fall day at the Harvest Festival