The Ice-Cream Cone Coot and Other Rare Birds

The Ice-Cream Cone Coot and Other Rare Birds
Arnold Lobel ~ Parent's Magazine Press, 1971

Finally discovered my son's all time favorite book. We've always been Frog & Toad fans. The boy is obsessed with the audio book collection and sometimes makes me repeat the story "A Swim" (from Frog and Toad Are Friends) some five times before moving on. It totally cracks him up.

Anyway, I was absolutely delighted when I stumbled across a never-before-seen-by-my-eyes Lobel classic that is all about birds (kind of). That is to say, it is all about imaginary birds... and it's only been in my possession since 11 o'clock this morning and already we've read it nine times. HE LOVES IT. This book and my son belong together. It was as if Arnold reached from the grave and created this book just for my son to enjoy. He tried to sleep with it tonight, but once he dosed off, I went back in and snatched it up. Make no mistake however, it will be the first thing I hear when he wakes up tomorrow, "WHERE IS MY ICE CREAM CONE COOT!?!" So, without further delay...

All the birds inside this book are very strange and rare, and if you travel to the zoo you will not find them there. Don't look for them in nature books, in parks or pet shop cages, The Drippet, Piffle and the rest live only on these pages.

Goodness. The awesomeness of this book is hard to put into words. Probably easier to put into names as we are introduced to the likes of The Milkbottle Midge, The Garbage Canary, The Jackknife Niffy, The Steampresser Sparrow, The Dollarbill Dodo, The Wetweather Wren, The Waterglass Goose, The Glove Dove and...

The Ten O'clock Tit Trush takes to the skies.
He soars high above us, and time really flies.

Needless to say, my son is hugely biased as this one is full of birds, but even still... The rhymes are impeccable. The bird illustrations imaginative and colorful. Really, you don't have to love birds to like it. Everything Mr. Lobel touched is gold in my book... Consider this 24 carat.Also by:
The Terrible Tiger
Red Tag Comes Back
Oscar Otter
The Star Thief
Mouse Tales
Prince Bertram the Bad
The Secret Three
Benny's Animals
Lucille
Miss Suzy
Martha the Movie Mouse
Terry and the Caterpillars
The Strange Disappearance of Arthur Cluck

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