Simon Sort of Says: (Newbery Honor Book)

by Erin Bow

There are emus everywhere. I guess I was expecting, like, three emus. This is more emus. This is a lot of emus. This is maybe twenty emus. If you’re thinking twenty emus is not a lot, then you’ve never seen emus. I don’t think I had, up until now. We don’t get them much in Omaha. They are bigger than I’d thought they’d be: like five or six feet tall. They have bodies like huge gray-brown feather dusters, and long, long necks like they are actually Muppets and someone’s entire arm is in there. Their legs are like dinosaur legs, bare and lean and strong. They use their legs to run at absolutely top speeds, and they use their necks to twist and flop around comically, and they don’t use their brains at all. They are driven by a mix of curiosity and panic. I read about them later in Agate’s book and learn that one very bad strategy for herding emus is to run at them, shouting and waving your arms.