Tico and the Golden Wings (Knopf Children's Paperbacks)

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story
Review: A lovely story. Thoughtful. Sometimes having what we wish for is not nearly as important as giving. Our value comes from within. A story I look forward to sharing with my nephews and grandchildren.

Rating:
Summary: A parable about sharing and being yourself
Review: I've been reading books to children for almost two decades, and Leo Lionni's books have always been among my favorites. They're simple in the same way that the parables of Jesus are simple - the meaning of the stories is immediately clear, yet they are deep and wise, and the stories stay with you forever.

Tico and the Golden Wings is not one of Lionni's best known books (Swimmy and Frederick probably fill that category - and both of them are terrific), but it's one of my favorites. It's about a bird born without wings, who cannot fly like his friends. The friends are kind to him, but he feels left out because he cannot do the things they do. Wishing for wings, he gets his wish, but the wings are made of gold. As Tico flies around the world, he encounters people with great needs and tries to help them by giving each of them one of the gold feathers from his wings. His reward for this generosity is to grow a real feather for every golden one he gives away.

In the end, Tico returns to his friends, who are thrilled to see him with wings just like theirs. They think he is now just like them, but Tico nurtures an understanding that his thoughts and experiences are not like those of his friends, that inside he is still different.

The message is simple: you can care about others and still nurture your own indivuality. What is special about this book, though, is not just the lovely and wise message, but the fact that it remains lovely, and not the least bit cloying or preachy, after hundreds of readings. You can read this book to any three or four year old who has enough experience with books to sit still for a quiet story, and continue reading it to him or her for years, knowing the child will get more out of it each time he or she hears it.