Bower Bird’s Blue Book

Bower birds build elaborate nests, often decorated with found objects in a single color. In this story, an enthusiastic, but misguided bower bird discovers a painter's box filled with different blue paints. He sets about trying to redecorate the entire landscape in various shades of blue, from indigo to zaffer, a different shade and subject in each stanza. The story is told A-A-B-B rhyming verse with internal triplet rhythms, and is meant to be read aloud and shared. The adult reader and younger listener will both learn new words and shades of blue as the misguided bower bird ultimately learns that he can't redecorate the whole world to his liking, and that the bits of blue found naturally in the landscape are, therefore, all the more precious.