L. Frank Baum
Policeman Bluejay
language
( Aug. 11, 2015)
*This Book is annotated (it contains a detailed biography of the author).
*An active Table of Contents has been added by the publisher for a better customer experience.
*This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errors.
Policeman Bluejay or Babes inn Birdland is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum. First published in 1907, it has been considered one of the best of Baum's works.
At the story's start, Twinkle and Chubbins are lost in a "great forest." They encounter a "tuxix" — a creature that looks like a spiny turtle, but is in reality "a magician, a sorcerer, a wizard, and a witch all rolled into one...and you can imagine what a dreadful thing that would be." The evil tuxix casts a spell on the children, transforming them into little bird-like beings, with their own heads but the bodies of skylarks. (They resemble the human-headed, bird-bodied sirins, alkonosts, and gamayuns of Russian folklore.) Policeman Bluejay, the force of order in the avian world of the forest, leads the two child-larks on a flight through the sky; he esconces them in an abandoned thrush's nest in a maple tree, and with the help of a friendly eagle he retrieves their picnic basket (so that they don't have to eat bugs, worms, and grubs).