Hooray for Birds!

Twelve years after Hooray for Fish!, Cousins invites listeners to join in as part of a boisterous flock. "Can you imagine...just for one day...you're a busy bird? Yes, a bird! Hooray!" The simple (verging on trite) rhyming text creates a jaunty, quick pace for the youngest audiences ("The sun is up, the sky is blue. Wake up and shout 'cock-a-doodle-doo!'"), while saturated gouache paintings with bright colors, strong contrasts, and thick black outlines allow each feathered specimen to burst off the page. Starting with the early-rising rooster, the book showcases the wide variety of bird species and activities (flying in the sky, hopping on the ground, pecking at a tree, swimming in the water) and touches on various methods of moving, eating, and making noise until it closes out the day with the "whoo! whoo!" of a wide-eyed owl. As a special treat, the endpapers open with a spread of all the birds featured and close with those same birds sleeping, but careful observers will notice the owl, which sleeps in the beginning and wakes at the end. The book's large size and format, along with the second-person narration and bold illustrations, create a natural opportunity for children to become a physical part of the story. julie roach