The Cuckoo's Haiku: and Other Birding Poems

Rosen delights readers with imaginative haikus on birds in each of the four seasons. There are Canada Goose in spring, Belted Kingfisher in summer, black-billed cuckoo in autumn, etc.. Watercolor illustrations give this book the feeling of a field book, complete with scribbled notations about each species in the margins. This kind of poetry would be great practice at making inferences and understanding metaphors for readers ages 5-10.

The illustrations vividly portray the stanza at hand, and (to my knowledge) are quite true to life. The language is exquisite and may tell you something about these birds that you did not know before.

The book talks not only the different birds of the seasons but how the seasons almost mimic the birds, in color and in behavior.

I can relate by simply saying that through out my life depending on the weather or the season, I felt that I have changed be it from my clothes, by hairstyle, my weight or my personality. Different events, places, weather seem to bring out all different kinds of emotions.

I can relate this book to my kids by having them what birds around where they live, what do they look like, how do they act, what is the weather like? Then I can ask them what they felt like that day, how where they acting, what where they wearing that day, and see how similiar nature and our own lives inter twine.

Response - the simple haikus and beautiful watercolors are very inviting to the reader. I like how the author divides up the poems into sections for each season.

Curricular connection - read aloud; unit on poetry

This is a pretty poetry book with wispy font and beautiful watercolor pictures of birds.