A Poet's Bird Garden    by Laura Nyman Montenegro Order:  USA  Can Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007 (2007) Hardcover Read an Excerpt     Reviewed by Hilary Daninhirsch When Natalie's bird Chirpie escapes from his cage and into a tree, her mother calls all the neighborhood poets over to help entice him down. The poets arrive. I open the gate. Priyanka says, 'I've brought Vincent, Lily, and Pendleton, too, and Marion is coming - she's tying her shoe. You need not worry. Haven't you heard? There are oodles of ways to lure a bird.' The poets reach into their bag of tricks to lure Chirpie: they sing like a bird, wiggle like a worm, stand like a statue. Finally, one of the poets gets the idea to build a bird garden to beckon the flyaway bird. When he doesn't appear immediately, the group of poets realize the culprit is the cat Claude and immediately chase him out of the garden. A paean to poetry and nature, I think A Poet's Bird Garden may go over the heads of younger children as the language is a little flowery, though lyrical in places. The illustrations, though, are bright and whimsical, and children will enjoy pointing out Chirpie on each page. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Kids books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews