Today at the Bluebird Cafe: Today at the Bluebird Cafe - Hardcover

Ruddell, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689871538 ISBN 13: 9780689871535

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007

Synopsis

It's all-you-can-eat
at the Bluebird Café,
A grasshopper-katydid-cricket buffet,
with berries and snails
and a bluebottle fly,
a sip of the lake
and a bite of the sky.


A world of birds unfolds in twenty-two vivid poems that capture the unique personalities of birds from backyard blue jays to toucans and cockatoos. Come sweep through the sky with an eagle, compare table manners with a vulture, and mock a mockingbird -- if you dare!

Debora Ruddell's poems are funny and thoughtful, silly and sweet. Joan Rankin's delightful pictures enchant the eye and tickle the funny bone. There is something for everyone who flies through the pages of this brilliantly birdbrained book.

About this title

About the Author

Deborah Ruddell is the author of the celebrated picture books Who Said Coo?, illustrated by Robin Luebs, and A Whiff of Pine, A Hint of Skunk and Today at the Bluebird Cafe, both illustrated by Joan Rankin. Before writing children’s books, she was an art teacher and a graphic designer.  Deborah lives in Peoria, Illinois. Visit her at DeborahRuddell.com.

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Kindergarten-Grade 4—"It's all-you-can-eat at the Bluebird Café,/a grasshopper-katydid-cricket buffet,/with berries and snails and a bluebottle fly,/a sip of the lake and a bite of the sky." The 21 poems that follow, each presented along with a single- or double-page illustration, address characteristics of different birds. Some entries are humorous, such as "The Woodpecker" ("If you think that his life is a picnic,/a seesawing day at the park,/I ask you just once to consider/the aftertaste/of bark"). Others are more thoughtful, such as "The Eagle" ("She rides the sky like she owns the sun,/on a sea of air and light-/surfing, skimming, rising high,/then sweeping low and tight") or "The Swan" ("Fairy-tale bird on a moonlit pond,/pulled by stars or a magic wand..."). All of the poems contain clever imagery and scan well. Rankin's watercolors have soft, muted tones and add charm, humor, and elegance to the offerings. The lighthearted paintings, sometimes realistic and sometimes more fanciful, depict delightful scenes of animals and children interacting.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
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Edition details

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0689871538
• ISBN 13: 9780689871535
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 32