The Beak Speaks

Jeremy Strong's The Beak Speaks is a funny animal story for 8 year olds, narrated by a mynah bird with a very high opinion of herself.

What happens

Her name is Dinah, which she considers a daft name and resents deeply. Dinah the Mynah. Honestly.

She lives in a cage at the Small Paws Animal Clinic and thinks she is the Style Queen. She speaks a bit of French. She can do posh talk. "Good evening, sir. Dinner will be served in the dining-cage at eight."

She also thinks dogs are idiots. There's a lovely bit early on where a girl brings in a dachshund stuck inside a length of water pipe, and Dinah laughs so hard she falls off her perch and lies on her back in the cage kicking her legs in the air.

Her opinion of sticks is worth the entry price on its own.

Underneath the showing off, Dinah is a rescue. She was being held by animal smugglers, escaped her cage, got sucked up a vacuum cleaner (which took most of her feathers off), flew out half bald and crash-landed in a vet's pond. He kept her. She still has nightmares about the other place.

The vet is Mr Peter, and his children are Mark and Tammy. Mark is the one to watch. He's mad about animals and spends each week pretending to be one. Last week an archerfish, squirting water at flies and soaking everybody. This week a leopard, hair dyed with spots, ambushing his dad from under the table.

Mark has also decided he's second-in-command of the family, and that what his dad needs is a girlfriend. So he advertises for one. Dinah, who understands every word he says and lets nobody know it, thinks this is a terrible idea. She is right.

A note for you rather than your reader. Mark and Tammy's mum left about two years ago and went to America with someone else, and they see her roughly once a year. That's set out plainly in the first chapter, so it's not something that lands on your child halfway through, and the book is funny and affectionate about the family they've still got. If your own house has been through something similar, it might be one to read alongside them.

What to read next

For a child who'd quite like the animals to take over the house, try My Dad's Got an Alligator. Nicholas's dad brings one home from work, insists it's a vegetarian, and Mum goes upstairs and locks herself in the bedroom.