Customer Reviews

The Language of Birds

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This is a beautiful and stylish book, featuring a simple and appealing retelling of a Russian folk tale. The story itself contains several of the more popular folk tale themes, including communication with animals, a "bad" and a "good" brother who go off to seek their fortunes, and a king that will marry his daughter off to the first person to meet his challenge, but will kill anyone who fails. (In case this worries you, here's a spoiler--nobody dies). And while we're worrying, I should mention that the return of the hero's father as an unrecognizable old man at the end is a bit confusing--how much time is supposed to have passed?

In any case, there is enough adventure and imagination and color here to hold the interest of most children. There's even a journey at sea, complete with storms and pirates. Like all good works of fantasy, this book opens up a world bigger than the story itself, leaving the reader wanting to explore the hidden realms between the pages.

A boy wins a princess as his wife because he shows caring and responsibility in his actions. His brother is more into dirty tricks and is sent to prison. Rafe Martin writes and entertaining tale for children.