Customer Reviews

Mocking Birdies

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This picture book is a real treasure.

A blue bird sings in blue text; a red bird copies that singing in red text.

Stop singing my song!
Stop singing my song!

But after the initial copycat dialogue, the two begin talking:
"i sing red as the dawn, when the sun peeps hello"
"i sing blue as the noon, when the sun calls to play"

Next thing you know, the two birds are singing together. And red and blue voices overlap to make purple. And then the purple bird shows up! And then there's a green cat. "Skit scat" "copycat" "copycat cat CAT."

The color coded dialogue contributes to the fun. I'm not sure how well it would work in a traditional story time, even with a storyteller who is good with doing different sounding voices, because of the great moment where red and blue overlap to be purple. Instead, I think it would work best with multiple readers, whether its in a small group with one or two beginning readers, a parent and child, or with a larger number of storytellers.

I like how the electric wires the birds are sitting on become a music staff. And I like how the colors of the rainbow are used. And I also like how the book jacket is different from the actual book cover, with the book cover incorporating the clever red and blue make purple motif.

Mocking Birdies is a fun, original and beautiful book. My 3.5 yr old loves the colors and the birds, but mostly loves the rhymes. What better thing to do than mock and copy your sibling? She wants to read it over and over and over again.
you should buy this book. you should buy this book.

Wikipedia explains that mockingbirds are "best known for the habit of some species of mimicking the songs of other birds, often loudly and in rapid succession." The Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas. This could be a fun book to add to the "state symbols" lessons. Kids understand that copycatting is a sure way to get under someone's skin. The book flap reminds us that "stop copying me" is a frequent childhood refrain.

The bright primary colors and geometric shapes of the birds prepare the readers for a bit of fun as they read this book. The birds sit on lines that resemble a music staff and then later, telephone lines. The text varies in size and color, which would make the book interesting to share as a choral read with a class. I would put the book under an Elmo so the whole class could see the colors and read the words. One group could read the red lines, another, the blue lines, and the purple lines together. The echoing quality of the text would make all students feel successful. This is also a good book to share sitting side by side with just one special reading friend.

My six-year-old and two-year-old repeatedly ceased their usual banter ("He's touching my [beloved plastic object goes here]!" "MINE!") long enough for me to read them Annette Simon's fun, colorful Mocking Birdies.

The title birdies' dialogue is color-coded to match the characters, making this book especially well-suited for reading (singing, tweeting, etc.) together with my older son, who also enjoys reading it by himself.

Annette Simon gets a whole lot of emotion out of the circles, semicircles and triangles she uses for her birds' bodies -- as fun as the dialogue is, our favorite pages are the wordless two-page spreads where the birds go beak-to-beak in a silent stare-off.

This is a fun and colorful book, published in November, 2005 by Simply Read Books. It's a simple story about two birds who keep copying each other, in a ridiculous and circular argument. One bird is red, and the other bird is blue, and the text of each bird's words is also in red or blue. Eventually, the two birds decide to sing together, instead of fighting with one another, and the text of their combined words is colored purple (get it? Red and blue together make purple). There is a nice page where the red and blue words are shown gradually overlapping one another, to make this very clear.

What sets this book apart, to me, is not the story of the birds copying each other, and learning to get along (though I think that kids, especially bickering siblings, will find it funny). No, what sets this book apart are the boldly colored illustrations of the birds, and a big yellow sun. I especially love one page that shows the oversized faces of the two birds, challenging one another beak to beak, with no words at all. Ms. Simon's ability to capture the personalities of these two birds, in simple, geometric illustrations, is amazing to me.

I also think that the colored fonts, especially when they merge to make purple, make this an excellent book for children just learning to read. The words themselves are a vibrant part of the story. And isn't fun with words what it's all about? I think that this book would make an excellent addition to any child's library. And if you have twins, well, then you should certainly buy it.

Incidentally, the mockingbird is the state bird of both Texas and Florida, the two states that Annette Simon and her family have lived in most recently. Maybe that's where the big yellow sun in the books comes from, too.

These comments are reproduced from a review that I posted on my website, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on February 18, 2006.

First things first (and forgive me for stating the obvious) but these aren't actual mockingbirds. (Shocking, right?) We have mockingbirds living right outside my house, and they're very pretty birds, but they definitely aren't round-headed, bright-colored creatures.

Moving on, these birds ARE cool in design. In fact, I like the artwork more than I like the words. The birds move (and their songs) move up and down a musical staff (or what looks like one), and there isn't a wasted line anywhere. Everything is very bright and engaging.

As for the text, well, my nieces like it and it's easy for a young reader. I find the repetition a little annoying, but it's SUPPOSED to be repetitive, it's a book called "mocking birdies" about two birds (and then three) copying each other! I can't really fault it for that, and it's certainly effective.

This isn't a "must-have" book, but I do recommend it for anybody's home. It's a nice addition to the bookcase.

There's a deceptive simplicity about this back-and-forth between two birds. One's red, the other's blue, and the idea is that you read one color and your kid reads the other as they mimic each other.

Or, in my case, I read both, but in different voices. But before I could stop myself, I took on a cadence, and began to notice the story's singsong quality.

In the book, the lines are also staggered, so alternating colors and layout work in harmony with its jazzy meter. Eventually, the two birds join up, chirping purple lyrics, until a purple bird joins them as their songs spread this way and that across the page. Even the wires where they perch become bars of music.

Simon, who worked in advertising, channels Milton Glaser, the guru of modern design with his "I [heart] NY" and "LOVE" logos. Her minimalist style makes the most of a few simple shapes and primary colors surrounded by ample white space. The way the figures appear on the page is part of the book's musicality, with their own visual rhythm.

That's just to say there's more than meets the eye here, and more to the ear as well.

"Mocking Birdies" heralds the spring with a jazz poem for several voices.... What a clever, amazingly fun book! Young kids will enjoy the color-based joke and bold illustrations, but the book's stylish design will win adult fans, too. Simon is an author/illustrator worth watching. In appreciation, I can only echo the birds' words: "Encore! Encore!"

This book was a wonderful find for our children, who currently mimic everything we say! After reading this book, I had to get copies for all my friends with children, mainly because everyone goes through this type of fight on a weekly basis!! The colors were bright and cheery and it actually made mocking each other seem fun! Well, at least for the reader!! ha Thank you for a wonderful book.

Good design. Does it help or hinder a picture book? Ask me that same question about a year ago and I would've answered you with an overly-enthusiastic "HINDER!". Ask me today and now I'm not so sure. When I read picture books like David Pelletier's laughable, "Graphic Alphabet" I decided to shun any title for kids that cared more about layout and composition than who its intended audience should be. Other books have had their design sillinesses, but that one in particular took the cake. Then this past December I had a chance to see David Carter's remarkable pop-up extravaganza, "One Red Dot". Now there, ladies and gentlemen, is a beautifully designed book that never forgets for a second that kids may be part of its intended audience. So my opinions started to shift oh-so slightly to the maybe-well-designed-picture-books-ain't-so-bad-after-all. Good thing I did too. Otherwise I might have immediately pooh-poohed Annette Simon's amusing exercise in combining children's copycat behaviors with an upbeat well-designed cacophony of sound. Design has never had a young audience so keenly on its mind.

A single blue bird on the left-hand page looks across a vast white space and says, "You!". A single red bird on a right-hand page looks across a vast white space and says, "You!" as well. What the blue bird says, the red bird repeats. The blue bird is convinced that the red bird is doing the imitating and the red bird believes the opposite. It's only when both birds come to understand that they want the same thing that they sing together a bright purple song. Of course, this attracts the attention of a purple bird with his own purple music. He joins in the song as well, and a green and orange cat (perhaps the original copycats) say, "someone's singing my song". The book ends with the birds copying and repeating a tune of their own.

With simple shapes against a white background, the colorful birds are like little bright musical notes. They perch on telephone wires for much of this book. Those telephone wires, in turn, become the lines on a sheet of music when the birds finally indulge in out-and-out full-throated singing. The book doesn't go so far as to explain what the combinations of different primary colors are, but it still manages to get the point across. Kids can see that when the blue bird's blue lines merge with the red bird's red lines, the result is purple lines ah-plenty. The words themselves were fine. Sometimes the lines didn't scan as well as I would've liked. Sentences don't always rhyme or work, but overall they convey the bright and cheery intensity of the characters.

Out of curiosity I tried to see whether or not anyone prior to Ms. Simon had ever thought of doing a book of this nature. If mockingbirds mock then logic would dictate that there might be other copycat type picture books out there. There are, but none of them have ever dealt with mockingbirds themselves. There was Peggy Rathmann's, "Ruby the Copycat" and of course the, "Copycub" books by Richard Edwards. But insofar as birds are concerned, mockingbirds usually just appear in different picture book versions of that old song, "Hush Little Baby", and that's it. "Mocking Birdies" will be a hit with any kid just learning to read who needs bright colors and simple words to follow. It may even make fairly good readers theater if one kid takes all the blue lines and another all the red. Consider it enjoyable fare.