Friendly Feathers book by Fran Smith matched with Folkmanis African Grey Parrot Puppet

"For bird lovers young and old, this book demonstrates the relationship between one parrot and his family. Pierre, the African Grey, says greetings, makes contact calls, requests food, comments on events, and even gives commands to the poodle. Do parrots and other birds in the wild use specific sounds to communicate the same messages in bird sounds? Ornithologists have found that birds do "talk" to each other in their own way. Deon Matzens charming illustrations bring Pierre to life in this delightfully illustrated account of the bird's communication to his family. Enjoyable reading for both reader and audience."

What is really neat about this book is that Fran Smith is a local author who lives on Whidbey Island. We had a book signing last year before the Folkmanis African Grey Parrot was released and actually met Pierre. He lived up to our expectations!

Fran had come in earlier in the year and asked if we had an African Grey Parrot puppet. Sadly, we had to say no. Could Folkmanis make one? We gave her our long time contacts at Folkmanis to see if they might consider making one. And guess what, the parrot was in the works and they were happy to receive Fran's book and work with her on the parrot design. So, if you buy our African Grey Parrot Puppet, he surely must be named Pierre.

** update

Fran just popped into the store and told me that Folkmanis had given her one of the new African Grey Parrot puppets. They were going to give it to one of their grandchildren, but found that Pierre had become attached to the puppet. He would flap his wings with the puppet and liked when Fran would use the puppet to preen Pierre.