The Boy and the Bowerbird

Leo is a curious boy who loves collecting small treasures, from a bent key to a blue bottle cap, and carries his newest finds to school in a green backpack with a bird patch. One Monday morning, his teacher Miss Ada opens a big book and introduces the class to the bowerbird, a small violet-black bird with an orange crest that gathers twigs, grass, moss and shiny objects to build an elaborate display. Leo is captivated by the idea of a bird that makes art out of what it finds, and he begins to see the bottle caps in his pocket and the boxes by the door in a completely new way.

Inspired, Leo and his friend, a girl with a ginger bob and a pencil tucked behind her ear, decide to build a model of their own classroom from discarded materials. They collect cereal boxes, bottle caps, ribbon, straws, buttons, wrappers and an egg carton, and Leo spends the afternoon cutting and rolling and gluing until a bright, colorful, wonderfully odd little classroom rises from the floor. When he brings it to school, Miss Ada tells him that he has done exactly what a bowerbird does. This gentle tale by Ebru Mina TOMURCUK can be read on Onlinemasal Com.Tr.