Mole and the Baby Bird
This sweet, simple story from Marjorie Newman (The King and the Cuddly) and  award-winning Scottish illustrator Patrick Benson (The Sea-Thing Child) somehow  avoids cliché while teaching one of life's oldest lessons: if you love  something, you really shouldn't hold it prisoner in a tiny, handmade wooden  cage.With spare text, Newman explains how Mole finds a baby bird that has fallen out  of its nest, apparently abandoned. ("Mole waited and waited, but no big bird  came to help it.") He takes the tiny bird home to keep, despite his parents'  warnings: "'It's my pet bird,' said Mole. 'It's not a pet bird. It's a wild  bird,' said his mother." Eventually, the baby bird tries to fly, and the  earnest, industrious Mole builds a cage (with the bird's help!) to keep him from  leaving. ("He put the bird into its new cage. The bird was sad. Mole's mother  was sad, too. But Mole kept his bird, because he loved it.") Eventually, it  falls to visiting Grandad to gently nudge Mole into doing what he knows he  must.As inThe Sea-Thing Child(with Russell Hoban), Benson's understated  artwork helps to keep this fairly adult message accessible for wee ones, with  thoughtful compositions that carry the meter towards the book's inevitable end.  But Benson's most memorable accomplishment is the subtly sad and comic baby  bird, who regularly peeks out to look directly at the reader. (Ages 4 to 8)--Paul Hughes