“United Tweets of America: 50 State Birds, Their Stories, Their Glories” by
Hudson Talbot (Putnam Juvenile, 9780399245206, $17.99, 64 pages, for ages 4
and older)
This fun, fact-filled picture book uses the premise of a beauty pageant for
official U.S. state birds to inform readers of all ages about state emblems,
mottoes, nicknames, history, wildlife, and more. Each state gets each own
page, loaded with plenty of captions and illustrations, and each flighty
bird gets to strut his or her stuff in some memorable way that will help
readers recall bits of intriguing trivia.
Here are a few high-flying favorites:
* The California quail gives thanks both to the Academy and to its stylist
as it accepts an Oscar-style statuette for its perennial role in the
partridge family. (Ba-dum-bum)
* Connecticut’s American robin marches to its state song, “Yankee Doodle,”
while on next page, the Delaware blue hen chicken crows about being from the
first state to sign the Constitution. (Delaware. Who knew?)
* Truculent twin cardinals from Illinois and Indiana scuffle over abutting
territories on adjoining pages. (It turns out cardinals are very
territorial, just like Hoosiers.)
* Kansas’ own western meadowlark belts out “Home on the Range” from atop an
American Buffalo standing in a field of sunflowers. And of course, there’s a
mention of “The Wizard of Oz,” apparently the only movie ever set in Kansas.
(Besides that one with the nuclear bomb.)
* A Baltimore oriole pitches crab cakes in a Maryland baseball game. (Yum:
crab cakes.)
* Meadowlarks from Montana and Nebraska sing a spirited prairie duet. (Yes,
Kansas shares its big bird with these two states--and with North Dakota,
Oregon, and Wyoming, too. But don’t fret, we’ll always have our mythical
Jayhawk!)
“United Tweets” offers a lot of fun to amateur geographers and bird-watchers
of all feathers. And which bird wins the pageant, you ask? Well, the contest
ends in an inconclusive dust-up and closes with a sing-along of “God Bless
America,” complete with modified phrases like “crown thy good with birdyhood.”
All in all, it’s a real hoot.
Review by
Mark David Bradshaw, May 14, 2008
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