A BIRTHDAY FOR BIRD

By the author/illustrator of A Turtle and a Loon and Other Fables (1965) this turns a simple situation all children can recognize into a small nonsense-fest. Bird anxiously dropped hints to all his friends about his impending birthday, but when the day came, and even after he'd loudly congratulated himself, he was afraid that they'd forgotten. They hadn't, but they were all worried about the suitability of the gifts they'd dredged up and whether Bird would be able to figure out their uses. He knew right away, and from the empty snail shell to the nail on a string the gifts turned out to be exactly what he wanted. It's written in verse that maintains a fast swing that's easy to read aloud. The pre-birthday jitters turned to party-time surprise and pleasure is totally captured and accompanied with the light but bright drawings which are simple and airy but which contain the minute natural details that are always nice to pick out. It'll go down like icing on the birthday cake or the sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder.