How to Hide in Plain Sight: Undercover Ostrich by Joe Kulka

I notice a lot of animals are super sneaky.

A chameleon can change colors to stay hidden.

But do you know who is the sneakiest of all?

UNDERCOVER OSTRICHES!

You've never seen a surreptitious ostrich? That proves just how stealthy ostriches can be!

See those three birds perched on a power line? (Would you believe one of them is an ostrich?) See those four birds cheerily splashing in two birdbaths? (Guess what? One is an ostrich, keeping a low profile.) Ostriches have been known to swim majestically down a river, dodging ducks, pretending to be a swans. (Plumage is plumage, right?)

And that trench-coated commuter on the subway, blending in with the mini-skirted teen and that sophisticate with his iphone and earbuds? Yep! That slouchy brown fedora is hiding a clandestine ostrich.

An ostrich could be in your house right now, and you would never know it.

That, er, interesting lamp with the fringed lampshade in your living room? (Check the neck!) Could that sub rosa ostrich in the backyard be stalking a bird feeder? Isn't it absurd that a bird that big would hide out in your own backyard just to pilfer some sunflower seeds and peanuts?

But beware! There could be also be peanut-obsessed undercover elephants out there by the sandbox, in Joe Kulka's jolly and absurdist Undercover Ostrich (CarolRhoda Books, 2019). Author-illustrator Kulka's heightens the irony of his narrator by filling his full-bleed, double-page spreads with goofy, gangly, googly-eyed ostriches trying to keep themselves covert with visual gags which will give young readers fits of giggles.