Mud City: A Flamingo Story [Hardcover]

Brenda Z. Guiberson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2005 | Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

The shallow lake is crowded with flamingos. A few stand on a toothpick leg and doze. Others dip their heads upside down into the cloudy water to eat. But most sit on a mud nest to shade an egg from the blistering sun.

Follow a flamingo from egg through adulthood in this fascinating tale

On a muddy mound in a salty lake, a mother and father flamingo take turns protecting their egg from the hot sun. Soon a fluffy white chick hatches in the nest near the mangrove roots.
Just four days later the chick learns to swim. By the time he is five weeks old, he can find food for himself. When pink feathers replace his white baby down, he is ready to learn to fly.

For years the young bird flocks with other flamingos in quiet lagoons and salty lakes. At last he finds a mate and returns to the mud city near the mangrove trees to build a nest of his own.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4–Featuring a flamingo colony in Inagua National Park in the Bahamas, Guiberson's brightly colored watercolor/gouache illustrations are a perfect complement for her informative, conversational text. From egg to chick to final mating maturity, the life cycle of a flamingo is followed; readers see the young bird's straight beak curl and curve, its diet change from reddish flamingo "milk" to brine shrimp, and its white fluff bloom into pinky-orange plumage. Team this attractive book with Bruce McMillan's detailed photo-essay Wild Flamingos (Houghton, 1997) for a fine flamingo duo, or perhaps with Guiberson's own Spoonbill Swamp (Holt, 1992) for a pair of titles that are pretty in pink.–Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

K-Gr. 3. Guiberson, the author of Rain, Rain, Rain Forest (2004) and The Emperor Lays an Egg (2001), now spotlights flamingos in the first nonfiction picture book she has illustrated as well as written. Describing the life cycle of a flamingo, the story follows one bird over several years as it hatches from the egg, learns to find food and fly, explores different water habitats, locates a mate, and helps build a nest for its chick. The watercolor illustrations are well observed and closely allied with the text. Those with many elements seem less than the sum of their parts, while the simpler ones are often excellent. An informative introduction. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (May 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805071776
• ISBN-13: 978-0805071771
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #861,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As a child, Brenda Z. Guiberson never thought about being an author or illustrator but wondered how she might become a jungle explorer. Much of her time was spent swimming in the Columbia River, watching birds and salmon, searching for arrowheads, and building things or taking them apart. She was curious about many things and had a lot of patience for watching.

In school, she loved science classes. But as she put herself through the University of Washington, it was easier to schedule evening English classes than afternoon science labs. She graduated with B.A. degrees in English and Fine Art.

Her son brought home stacks of books for reading. When he went off to elementary school, she volunteered in the school library and classroom. All these kids and books got her interested in writing for children. After taking exciting trips that involved a fifty-foot cactus, hungry alligators and sunset-colored spoonbills, she wanted to create books for children that would be like a field trip. Early books includeTurtle People, Cactus Hotel and Spoonbill Swamp. Like all the books that followed, they are filled with dramatic detail that came from doing extensive research.

Research, to her, is a great adventure. Finally she gets to be a jungle explorer. It includes talking to experts, looking through dusty collections and reading books. But her favorite part is getting out in the field. She has counted sea turtle eggs at 3 a.m. in Costa Rica, observed dancing flamingos on a salty island in the Bahamas, spent a night in a haunted lighthouse, kissed a dolphin on the snout, and watched graceful leeches swim in a boreal bog. All of this is part of an effort to create surprise, wonder and intrigue in her books. The other part of the effort involves revision, revision and more revision until the book flows with a sense of poetry blended with accurate information.

Whether the research leads to emperor penguins, flamingos, or mummies, she finds stories of wonder, adventure and survival everywhere. They are in the connections between plants and animals, in the links between past and present, in every hot, cold, salty and wet environment from the biggest to the smallest creature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful and informative story!, October 27, 2011

By 

Cheryl A. Kelley (Michigan) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mud City: A Flamingo Story (Hardcover)

This book is very well written and the drawings are beautifully done. The story is quite informative, with many interesting facts about flamingos. A good read for flamingo fans of any age!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story from Nature, April 22, 2010

By 

David Patneaude (Woodinville, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mud City: A Flamingo Story (Hardcover)

Brenda Z Guiberson has perfected the art of bringing stories of nature to young (and not-so-young) readers. Under the spell of her narration and art, the reader realizes that the flamingos of Mud City aren't just static decorative animals but unique fascinating creatures with a story to tell, and Brenda tells it with style.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars flamingos come to life, August 1, 2006

By 

mary wells "deborah" (adelaide, australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mud City: A Flamingo Story (Hardcover)

As a zoo volunteer and storyteller, I look for books that will be of interest to children. This book, captures the life of a flamingo. The illustrations are of good quality. This story I will be reading in front of the flamingo exhibit at the zoo.

zoo volunteer and storyteller.