Review #56: The Cuckoo's Haiku

Dad:  "The Cuckoo's Haiku..."  That's hard to say out loud, isn't it?
Lily (age 6):  It's a tongue twister!
Dad:  This is "The Cuckoo's Haiku" by Michael J. Rosen, illustrated by Stan Fellows.
Gracie (age 9):  This book is all haikus.
Dad:  Who can tell me what a haiku is.
Gracie:  It's a poem where you have to have 5 syllables, then 7 syllables, then 5 syllables.
Dad:  Does it have to rhyme?
Gracie:  No.
Dad:  "Poem" doesn't always mean "lines that end the same."  Poems are just when you write with rules in mind... when you fit words into a pattern.  Maybe the pattern is made of the last words in the lines rhyming.  But that's not the only kind of pattern.
Lily:  Five, seven, five.
Dad:  Can you describe this book?  We don't really have a plot to explain.
Isaac (age 11):  Haikus about birds.
Dad:  Well, that about sums it up...
Isaac:  Yup!
Gracie:  They are fun haikus.
Isaac:  They are cool.  They are very descriptive.
Gracie:  It doesn't just say "This is a gray bird / It can fly very high up / This is the end now."
Dad:  Ha ha - yes, that would have been a haiku...
Gracie:  But it would be boring.  The ones in this book are not boring.  Like the bluebird one goes: "on a staff of wires / blue notes inked from April skies / truly, spring's first song."  He made the poem awesome.
Isaac:  It's a very descriptive way of explaining birds.
Dad:  What do you like better, the paintings or the poems?
Gracie:  They are equally matched.  They are both stinking awesome!
Lily:  Awesomely stinking awesome!
Dad:  We talked about Michael J. Rosen's poems a bit already.  Tell me about Stan Fellow's illustrations.
Gracie:  He paints cool.  Isaac can paint birds that way!
Lily:  And when the artist drew something and changed his mind, he didn't even erase it.
Gracie:  But that makes it cool!
Lily:  He wanted to draw a grasshopper, and then he was like, "Nah, I don't want to do it anymore."
Dad:  So he left that part of the painting unfinished, huh.
Lily:  He didn't even finish drawing this bird.  He was like, "I want to color this bird in... naw... I don't want to color it anymore."
Gracie:  And he didn't even erase that unfinished part.  He doesn't care.  Whatever parts he wants to draw, he just draws.
Dad:  And he uses watercolors.  You guys like using watercolors don 't you?
Lily:  Yeah!  And sometimes he goes "splat-ly."  Sometimes it looks like he just whacks with the paintbrush so the paints go all over the paper.
Isaac:  He also puts all kinds of little pictures around randomly.
Gracie:  And he puts them in panels, panels, panels.
Lily:  This picture is on the same page as this picture, but he just put a square around it.
Gracie:  That's called a panel.
Dad:  Did you have a favorite page in this book?
Gracie:  Yes.  I'll find it.  I like this one.
Dad:  The Cedar Waxwing...
Gracie:  Yeah.  I like this part right here.  The part in the panel with the berry in his mouth.  I want to hang this up.  If we ever get 100 copies of this book, can I have one and cut this part out?  It's so pretty.
Isaac:  I like the turkey one.  It's just cool.
Dad:  That's my favorite too.
Gracie:  It would be better if the bird was the prettiest bird in the whole world instead of just a turkey.
Dad:  Turkeys might be goofy looking, but sometimes the goofy animals are more fun to look at than the pretty ones.
Lily:  I learned that turkeys' footprints look like arrows -- but the turkeys move the opposite way of the arrows.  So you can tell where a turkey is when it runs away.
Dad:  You just follow the arrows backward.
Lily:  Yep.
Dad:  We really liked the apple tree poem too...
Gracie:  Oh yeah, that was funny.
Dad:  To what did they compare the apple tree?
Gracie:  An actual apple.
Lily:  With "apple seed" birds.
Gracie:  If you flip the book upside down on the page with the white tree and the crows, the tree looks like an apple.
Lily:  A sliced open apple.
Gracie:  The black crows look like the seeds in the middle.
Dad:  So did this book inspire you?  Are you all creative and poetic now?  Do you have ideas flowing out of your brains like melted butter running down toast?
Gracie:  Dad, that was awesome!
Isaac:  No.  It's more like bricks stuck in my head that won't come out.
Dad:  There you go!  That sounds poetic too!  Just throw it into a haiku... 5, 7, 5.  "Bricks stuck in my head / Those darn thoughts will not come out / My poem is stuck."
Isaac:  You're good at haikus.  See, I could never do it that fast.
Dad:  Does anyone have a descriptive way to summarize the book?
Isaac:  Like, make up a haiku about the book?
Dad:  Yeah.  That's what Michael J. Rosen does.  He doesn't just say, "This is how it is."  He paints with words.  He makes a painting in our imagination, and his words are the brush.
Isaac:  How do you do that?  You are good at this stuff!
Dad:  How would you describe this book poetically?
Lily:  This book is like a bird.  Because they are both beautiful.
Gracie:  This book reminds me of music.  It's really pretty.  It's really graceful, and it's got its own rhythm.
Dad:  Good job.  Very poetic of you.

Just like a whistle
Hear my song both far and near
Turns frowns upside down

                        - picture and haiku by Lily

Changing dark to light

Two wild fires in the still night:
Searching yellow eyes

                        - picture and haiku by Isaac


Sweetest little bird,
Like cherries and strawberries
A feast for the eyes

                        - picture and haiku by Gracie

Author: Michael J. Rosen
Illustrator: Stan Fellows
Published, 2009: Candlewick Press
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