Cuckoo! Hardcover – February 27, 2014

This story is about a cuckoo in the nest - literally. When Cuckoo hatches, the other birds notice that he is different and find they cannot understand him, so Cuckoo bravely leaves the nest in search of someone who can. This delightful book sees him trying to talk, with little success, to many different creatures. His efforts are often humorous and children will find them, and the quirky illustrations, very funny - plus there are plenty of opportunities for them to join in with the sounds. After all his efforts at attempting to find someone to understand him, he finally finds that one person who knows what he means - although there is a twist in the tale. This is a clever and fun read, with a nice message, and children will love it.

This is a delightful story about a cuckoo who can't communicate with his siblings or mama bird.The illustrations are charming, and the repetition in the book makes this great for a young child. We returned this to the library, but we missed it so much that we had to buy our own copy.

My 2 y/o's favorite book. We enjoy seeing Fiona's characters make cameos in her other works.

My three year old son loves this book. He thinks it's hilarious! It has him laughing hysterically every time we read it.

Everyone can feel a little different at times, but when you are a cuckoo, you may in fact actually be different to the rest of your family. This is the case of the little cuckoo in `Cuckoo' by Fiona Roberton, obviously left by its mother in the nest of another bird the little tyke is unable to communicate with its siblings, or any other animals in the town. This is a very charming book that has simple, but beautiful illustrations. There is not a lot of text or imagery, but you can still look around for some very fun things on the page - the sheep turn up a lot and did you notice the cameos from Roberton's other book `Wanted: The Perfect Pet'?The story is a little eccentric, but that is fun. However, the ending does not really make much sense and, although happy, will perhaps leave some children confused. It does not quite have the charm of `The Perfect Pet', one of my favourite children's books of last year, but there is vibrancy and a sense of love on each page that still makes `Cuckoo' excellent. It is Roberton's irreverent and gentle humour that really lifts the book, a night school for animals to learn other animal languages is a quirky and very fun idea. It is just that the narrative (as simple as it is) does not really wrap up in any satisfactory way.

When we received this booked was looking forward to reading it. Loved the look of it and illustrations but was confused and disappointed after reading. My partner read it first to are son and he said was really weird and confusing for young children and gave the message if no matter how hard you try you will fail. So I read it to my son a few days later and I had to work hard to keep him interested in the story.The book is all about a cuckoo bird (Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds nests) being born he realises he is different from his family and they can't understand him. No animal he meets can understand him. He decided to go to school to learn the other animals language so he can be understood. This is where the story starts to fail. All the animals at the school are making strange noises a cross between their noises and others. Confusing for a child. Also the cuckoo birds finds it impossible to learn. Then he here's another cuckoo and goes to find it. He finds a child paying with a toy cuckoo. The toy breaks and the child and cuckoo bird become friends because the boy understands him! Not quite sure what message this is sending. I can't say I found the ending a happy one. Not a story we will be reading very often.

This is a short story that consists more of animal noises than actual words. The illustrations are quite sweet and cute, but the storyline lets the book down.I found the plot to be rather strange. Baby Cuckoo can't communicate well with the others in his nest, so he flies away to find someone who can understand him better. After trying to learn the languages of other animals, he finds it too hard and gives up. At the end he finally finds a friend, though not the one he was expecting.I thought there were some troublesome messages in this plot, such as 'if your family doesn't understand you, you should run away', and 'if learning is hard, just give up'. The ending was really odd too and I'm not sure that it is a happy one - perhaps if the book had continued a bit longer and we had seen more of a connection between Cuckoo and his new human friend, that would have been better.Aside from the sweet pictures and the opportunity to teach your children about animal noises, I don't think this book has much going for it.

This is written by the same author (Fiona Roberton) as another book we have;  Wanted: The Perfect Pet (Spot & Henry)  which I think is a really nice story and you also see the two main characters from that book pop up in this book on page 13 which I thought was a nice touch.Unfortunately this book isn't as such a big hit in our house as although it is more colourful than the Wanted book, the story isn't as good and my son lost interest in the book half way through. To be entirely honest I don't really get the story line myself as why would it be good for the little cuckoo to go off and leave his family to find someone the same as him plus the mummy bird just lets him? Yes I do know about cuckoo's and how their mums leave them in other birds nests but I still don't get why this book has been written about this? Anyway I'm obviously reading too much into it! The illustrations are lovely but the story is a bit lost on me and didn't hold my sons attention I'm afraid. Wanted: The Perfect Pet (Spot & Henry)

I have read another of Fiona Roberton's books, " Wanted: The Perfect Pet ."This book tells the story of a cuckoo who hatches in another birds nest, because cuckoo's lay their eggs in other birds' nests. Soon he realises he is not like the other birds so he goes off to try and find someone to talk too. He sees all the animals and even tries learning their languages but nothing works. Until the end when he finds a friend.Now everything about this book is good. The illustrations are simple and neat, there is a call back to the previous book as Henry from that book walks his duck, and my 7-year-old daughter saw that too, which was a lovely moment. But I was hugely disappointed with the ending. Basically this book is about a human and an animal coming together and forming a friendship. This is exactly the same theme as the "Wanted: The Perfect Pet" book. Maybe the author is running out of ideas, if so my contact details are in my profile. But as a stand-alone this book would probably be fine. Wanted: The Perfect Pet