SONGBIRD IN THE LIGHT

Actor Porter exhorts readers to dream big as he revisits his difficult childhood—and the talent that allowed him to finally soar.

Billy’s mother, who uses a wheelchair, calls him her songbird and says that his voice is bigger than his body. When Billy sings, he feels self-assured; when he remains silent, he feels “like a songbird with its music turned off.” At school, he’s quiet, attempting to tamp down who he is to fit in, but kids don’t like how he walks or talks. (An afterword explains that children at school bullied him for his looks and that at his Pentecostal church, he was dubbed “a little funny”—a “‘nice’ way of saying they thought I was queer.”) But Billy’s music teacher, Ms. Irene, boosts his confidence as she encourages him to raise his voice in song. At the school talent show, he shines. No longer bullied, he gains the admiration of the other children, which helps him believe more fervently in himself. Porter’s earnest, first-person narration pairs well with Palmer’s explosively energetic acrylic paintings, which abound with birds of many kinds and colors. The peacock feather on the title page nicely foreshadows the climax when Billy sings from the stage, sporting a full display of peacock feathers, which readers (but not the characters) also see on his back during his standing-ovation performance.

A feel-good biography with illustrations as bright and ostentatious as the fabulous Billy Porter himself.