The King Of The Birds

First published by The Templar Company, plc in 1997.

A young girl brings home a peacock, but he refuses to show off his colorful tail! Inspired by the life of Flannery O'Connor. In this picture book, inspired by the life of Flannery O’Connor, a young fan of fowl brings home a peacock to be the king of her collection, but he refuses to show off his colorful tail. The girl goes to great lengths to encourage the peacock to display his plumage — she throws him a party, lets him play in the fig tree, feeds him flowers and stages a parade — all to no avail. Then she finally stumbles on the perfect solution. When she introduces the queen of the birds — a peahen — to her collection, the peacock immediately displays his glorious shimmering tail. This delightful story, full of humor and heart, celebrates the legacy of a great American writer. Includes an author’s note about Flannery O’Connor. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

One of NPR’s 50 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Decade: A fifteenth-century palace mapmaker must hide his powers in the time of the Inquisition . . . Award-winning author G. Willow Wilson’s debut novel Alif the Unseen was an NPR and Washington Post Best Book of the Year and established her as a vital American Muslim literary voice. Now she delivers The Bird King, an epic journey set during the reign of the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula at the height of the Spanish Inquisition. Fatima is a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain. Her dearest friend, Hassan, the palace mapmaker and the one man who doesn’t leer at her with desire, has a secret—he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls? As the two traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate. “Wilson has a deft hand with myth and with magic, and the kind of smart, honest writing mind that knits together and bridges cultures and people.” —Neil Gaiman, author of Norse Mythology “A triumph . . . one of the best fantasy writers working today.” —BookPage “A treasure-house of a novel, thrilling, tender, funny, and achingly gorgeous. I loved it.” —Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians trilogy

When chaos reigns among the birds, the oldest and wisest birds declare a contest to determine who will be their king.

In this retelling of a Chippewa folktale, the birds won’t stop arguing until Old Mother Owl decrees that whoever flies highest and longest will be their king. "The nondescript wren, small but exceedingly clever, capitalizes on the strength of the mighty eagle. Rich and expresssive illustrations depict the birds in their many vivid colors [in this retelling of one of the world's oldest legends]." —BL. Notable 1988 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)

An action-packed debut title for middle grade readers with an appetite for folklore and mythology, who are ready to move beyond storybook fairy tales. Debut author Alexander Utkin, retells the Slavic myths of his youth in a stunning new graphic novel, illustrated in a bold new style. When a merchant nurses the King of Birds back to health after he is injured in a great war, he is offered a great reward. Together they travel far across the land to the domains of the King's three sisters to claim the merchant's prize... but will they give up that which is most precious to them?

Behold the cormorant: silent, still, cruciform, and brooding; flashing, soaring, quick as a snake. Evolution has crafted the only creature on Earth that can migrate the length of a continent, dive and hunt deep underwater, perch comfortably on a branch or a wire, walk on land, climb up cliff faces, feed on thousands of different species, and live beside both fresh and salt water in a vast global range of temperatures and altitudes, often in close proximity to man. Long a symbol of gluttony, greed, bad luck, and evil, the cormorant has led a troubled existence in human history, myth, and literature. The birds have been prized as a source of mineral wealth in Peru, hunted to extinction in the Arctic, trained by the Japanese to catch fish, demonized by Milton in Paradise Lost, and reviled, despised, and exterminated by sport and commercial fishermen from Israel to Indianapolis, Toronto to Tierra del Fuego. In The DevilÕs Cormorant, Richard King takes us back in time and around the world to show us the history, nature, ecology, and economy of the worldÕs most misunderstood waterfowl.