Cuckoo/Cucu is a Mexican Folktale explaining how Cuckoo lost her beautiful feathers. It is retold in English and Spanish by Lois Ehlert and Gloria de Aragon Andujar. Cuckoo is a colourful, happy and vain bird and the other birds are tired of her. But when fire threatens their precious seed collection, does Cuckoo have what it takes to save the day? This is a big and colourful book. Ehlert's cut paper collages are eye-catching and dramatic. The book is written with both English and Spanish on each page. ( )

SS
A traditional Mayan tale which reveals how the cuckoo lost his beautiful feathers

Cuckoo is a great modern fantasy picture book. One feature of the book that I really enjoy is the text, because it’s written in both English and Spanish. On each page, even the front end pages, there is English text alongside the Spanish. Another thing that I really like about this book is the unique illustration style. The animals are all done in a paper puppet style, which is very interesting to look at and makes the book feel like a more authentic folk tale because you can imagine people using the puppets to tell the story. The big idea of this book is to not judge a book by its cover, or, “You can’t tell much about a bird by looking at its feathers.” ( )

Cuckoo is a beautiful bird but is very lazy. A drastic fire rupture through the Cuckoo's land. Cuckoo is needing to help, but might lose some feathers along the way. ( )

I liked this book because of the illustration and the message behind the story. The illustrations are super bright and are made out of different shapes put together. For example, on page six the dog is made out cylinders and held together by pins. I like the message of this story because it causally brings up judging people off their looks. All animals thought the cuckoo was useless because they just thought the bird was a useless pretty bird. The cuckoo ends up giving up his good looks to give the birds food. The main message of the story is not to judge people on looks but on their character.