Dr. Coo and the Pigeon Protest is a picturebook written by Sarah Hampson and illustrated by Kass Reich. It is currently scheduled for release on April 3 2018. Dr. Archibald Coo, an erudite big-city pigeon, is tired of the way people treat him and the other pigeons. They're always being shooed and swatted, and they're never admired the way the other birds are. As Dr. Coo tells his pigeon friends: It wasn't always this way. In ancient times, pigeons were known to accompany the gods. They brought news of the Olympic Games to all of ancient Greece. And more recently, they delivered messages and medicine to soldiers on battlefields. They were heroes! Surely, Dr. Coo reasons, pigeons can find a way to earn the admiration of people once again. And he's got just the bold plan to do it.
Dr. Coo and the Pigeon Protest is a well written and illustrated picturebook. I found the artwork to be lovely, and to give extra details to the story. I liked that the pigeons not only noticed how other birds were treated in contrast to them, but that they came up with a solution that was about knowledge, awareness, and love rather than violence and causing problems for those that have treated them badly. I like the example about compromise and making changes happen. It is about diversity, activism, compromise, and co-existence. I like that the lesson is part of the story, but at no point did it feel like it was being forced. Also, children might learn something real about how our use and perspective of pigeons has changed over the years, and that the same could happen to any other group with the right conditions.
