Book Review: The Cuckoo Child

Farm boy Jack Daw absolutely adores birds of all sizes and shapes - but it's not until a class fieldtrip to the zoo that he finds his one true love in the form of the world's biggest bird, the ostrich.  But besides the adult ostriches that day, Jack discovers a clutch of their eggs - eggs which the zoo has deemed surplus and is going to feed out.  And so Jack filches one to bring home and put under some birds on his farm to hatch out.  The result?  An ostrich chick on his to raise.  Alternating hilarity and drama ensue.

This is the premise of Dick King-Smith's young adult novel, The Cuckoo Child (referencing the behavior of cuckoos laying their eggs in the nest of other birds to raise).  I stumbled across it in my school library as a youngster and absolutely loved it (it's a young adult book, well-suited for children in the late elementary school/early middle school age bracket).  It's a book that would appeal nicely to any young animal lover, though it did have the predictable side effect, at least in my case, of giving me a somewhat acquisitive eye during my next visit to the zoo.

(Semi-related.  When I started volunteering at my local zoo in my high school years, I found a discarded ostrich egg - infertile, unlike Jack's - on my first day, and brought it home to clean out.  I don't know if he remembered the book or not, but when my dad saw me walking to the car that day, egg tucked carefully under my arm, I think he was under the impression that the zoo had sent me home to sit on it and hatch out an ostrich chick.)

Being a young reader's book, there are doubtlessly things in this book which are a bit... inaccurate (or at least unlikely), but that's okay.  One should never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and this is, in fact, a good one.  An absolute buzzkill, which I am occasionally accused of being, might also wonder if this book could encourage children to want exotic animals as pets (though ostriches, being farmed in parts of the world, don't exactly fit in that category).  I'd thought the same thing, briefly, of the movie Zebra in the Kitchen, which this slightly reminds me of (a bit more serious and less slapstick, though).  I'd disagree with that assessment in the end, however.  I'd say that the first priority is making children into animal lovers, for which good stories are essential.  Focusing on the minutiae of what animals are pets or not is something that comes later.

The Cuckoo Child at Good Reads