The Bird Queen: A Legend of the Mythical Phoenix Told in English and Chinese

by Yu Fu (Illustrator)

A long time ago, hundreds of birds lived on the Cangwu Mountain where they experienced four distinct seasons. Among them, there is a very unnoticeable brown bird called Phoenix. All birds except Phoenix fly to the largest lake in the mountain every day. They comb their feathers by the lake and compete to see whose feathers are more beautiful. Phoenix doesn’t like to attend such gatherings; instead, she collects food quietly to get ready for the winter. However, all the other birds make fun of her hard work. Unexpectedly, the coldest winter comes earlier than usual. Those birds who only care about their looks have to go out to find their food in the cold wind and heavy snow. They are almost starving to death due to the sudden shortage of food, but the kind Phoenix does not hesitate to share her food with her friends to tide over the difficulties. The cold winter is finally over, and spring has come. To thank Phoenix for saving their lives, the birds have prepared a mysterious gift for her. What is the gift then? Read the story and find out how the ordinary brown bird has transformed herself into the Queen of birds in Chinese myths.

Genres: Picture Books

36 pages, Hardcover

Published April 20, 2023

Reviews

[Oak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story similar to the ant and the grasshopper but the phoenix models kindness and generosity, which I like much better than the ants leaving the grasshoppers to die. And the other birds model gratitude.

I do wonder about the issue of beauty and that while we might try to say it’s her generosity that is most important, not her beauty, that the reward of beauty and her becoming the most beautiful actually reinforces that beauty *is* the most important thing, but I’d like to think that can be worked around with conversations and where the reader/facilitator chooses to place and frame the emphasis. This point makes me waver between marking the book down to 3 stars since this will take skill to facilitate that not every reader has, rather than being built into the story…

Also really cool it is a bilingual book that has an electronic component where you can listen to the book with the correct accent!

[Melanie Gaum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty illustrations help tell this story of how the phoenix gained its beautiful coat.

I accessed digital review copies of this book through NetGalley and Edelweiss.

[Lyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book. I liked the illustrations, and it was very cool that it was written in Chinese as well as English.