"Tico and the Golden Wings" By: Leo Lionni

The book Tico and the Golden Wings is an interesting book. It's about a bird, Tico, who doesn't have any wings. Although he doesn't have wings he is fortunate to have friends who fly and bring him food. One day Tico meets the wishingbird, and he wishes for a pair of golden wings. His friends are jealous of Tico's golden wings, and they don't talk to him. Tico helps the people around him by giving them his golden feathers for the things they need. Each time a golden feather is taken from his wings, and black feather grows in its spot. Eventually Tico has black wings like all of his friends, and they accept him again.
I enjoyed reading this book, but was really confused by the message it was trying to send its readers. But I think that the end of the book explains the message very well. At the end of the book when he is with his friends, and they all look alike he realizes that although he may look like his friends they are still all different because they have their "own memories, and his own invisible golden dreams". Unsure that I fully grasped the full message of this book I looked online to see what other people thought. I found a few different messages for this book. One was similar to mine, and it said "that we are all different and special no matter what color our wings are" (vintage childrens books my kids love) and another source believed that this book had many messages that deal with "acceptance, giving, sharing, and simply doing the right thing when called upon to do so" (good books for kids-review). After looking at the various meanings people got from this book I realized a few things. First off, I got one of the messages this book was trying to send. And secondly there are many more messages in this book than the one I found.
I think this would be a great book to read out loud to a class becasue each student would have a different take on what the author is trying to send to its readers. I also think that there would be a lot of differnt opinions on this book, and it has potential to start a good class discussion.