FEATHERS

McCue’s clean-lined, brightly colored close-ups of smiling birds, all in natural settings framed by garlands of vines, flowers or patterned ribbons, will draw children to these 27 impish rhymes, each of which celebrates a particular kind of bird. Sandwiched between a woodpecker’s “Wake Up” and the night hawk’s “Nighty-Night,” Spinelli travels from the tropics to Antarctica, backyards to deserts, ocean to urban canyons, offering an occasional dud—addressing a blue-footed booby: “Do show off your skills / as a catcher of fish. / Do whistle. Do waddle. / Then— / do what you wish”—but more often taking flight: “Dizzy-dazzle thrumming bird. / No bigger-than-my-thumb-ing bird. / A silky, summer-strumming bird.” This lively companion to the likes of Kate Kiesler’s Wings on the Wind (2002) and Douglas Florian’s ever-clever On the Wing (1996) finishes with sketchy endnotes that elaborate on information delivered in the verses. (Poetry. 7-10)