Joanna Cook

What kind of present would you get your grandmother for her birthday? Jake and Jackie Wrenolds, young wrens who are brother and sister, live in the Elm Tree Community with their parents and other friends such as the hummingbirds Mary and Tony Hummingway, the robins Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, the cardinals Sir Al and Alberta Cardin and their daughter Allie, and the obnoxious bluejay Axel B. Jaymes. It will soon be Grandmas Wrenolds’s birthday. She will be eight in bird years, making her the oldest resident of the Elm Tree Community. Jackie decides to surprise her grandmother with the latest thing from the King and Fisher store. It is a BNS or bird navigation system, a small device to clip under a wing to help keep a bird flying on track.
Will Grandma like her gift? Then the tale takes a mysterious turn when the device turns up missing. The question is now who took it? And how does the return of Mr. Fluffy, a cat who doesn’t treat birds very well, affect the celebration? Author and illustrator Joanna Cook introduced the Wrenolds and their neighbors in her first book of this delightful and whimsical series, The Wrenolds of Elm Tree Cottage, in which the bird community survives a tornado. Just a few months after that book came out, Joanna’s hometown of Joplin, MO, experienced a horrific tornado. Grandma’s Birthday Surprise, an early chapter book with bright, cheerful pictures that will appeal to early readers, is a warm, happy story that presents loving relationships between family and friends in a community where the bird folks look out for and help one another. It was a joy to read.… (mehr)