Make Room! Two Many Birds by Cindy Derby

Housing is in short supply in Birdville, and birds are  flocking  to rent a roost in a leafless apartment. The line is long, and the prospective landlord is a curmudgeonly cop, a blackbird with a megaphone whose rules are authoritarian:

NO RESTING! NO NESTING! NO PESTING!

NO HAIR GEL! NO POOPING ON THE GROUND!

(A Birda-Potty is provided on the grounds.)

The avian authoritarian surveils the premises strictly from his towering seat, abandoning bis watch only for his acorn meals, served by a servile waiter in black tie. The rest of the birds gingerly clutch their crowded twigs in fear, afraid of an infraction which will leave them perchless.

But there is a free spirit among the feathered residents who sneaks her nest in, concealed as a hairdo, and inside that nest are ....

... which in due course, become...

TWO MANY BIRDS!!!!!!

But when the intractably curmugeonly cop evicts the young mother and her brood, the birds of a feather flock together, and taking flight to a nearby pasture, they cultivate the watchman's acorn stock and grow enough trees for a powerful flock of their own, filling the air with the sweet song of birds, and with new signage:

NO SHOES? NO SHIRT?

NO PROBLEM!

FREE AS A BIRD is the watchword for Cindy Derby's new flight-of-fancy, Two Many Birds (Roaring Brook, 2020). Author-illustrator Derby, who was the recent winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations in Deborah Underwood's Outside In, makes use of her insightful and unique storytelling and artwork in this latest timely story. There always room for one (or two) more in this off-beat story of population growth that also advocates planting plenty of oak trees. For another quirky story written and illustrated by Cindy Derby, check out her recent outing, How To Walk An Ant.

"... worth perching prominently on the shelf," tweets Publishers Weekly's starred review.