Excellent love story of friendship and compromise. Nacho tries to fly with his love, a migratory bird, but can not. To bring her back to him, he plucks his feathers to create color In this dry so Cal valley. This is a great book to teach friendship, change in weather patterns and conservation, or about different birds/migratory patterns.

Ryan's storybook, based (very!) loosely on a folktale she had heard as a child, is a delightful read. Nacho is a big, brightly colored bird whose songs captivate his small town as well as the swallows who migrate each year to the area. One of the swallows, Lolita, is particularly drawn to Nacho, and a little romance ensues. But Lolita must leave at the end of the season, and she warns Nacho that the swallows may not be able to find the town again. Nacho must make a great sacrifice if he ever hopes to see his true love again.

Claudia Rueda's illustrations are equally fun and beautiful, with cartoonish expressions on the birds' faces as well as delicately rendered landscapes. The story is charming and touching with a message of the great value of friendship. Ryan's note on the source is extremely important to read, as she describes how much she has embellished upon the original source material for the folktale. There are other texts that are more authentic Mexican or Californian folktales; this book is a deviation that still entertains and inspires.

Lovely story of friendship and sacrifice.

A brightly colored bird sacrifices his colors so that he can see his sparrow friends again.

Me gustó el libro, nos enseña a que ayudar y pensar en los demás también es sano

Sweet story of friendship! And great vocabulary!

Lovely children's book. I rate within the genre and it's a five.

Offbeat and thought-provoking, this is a unique love story. It's a real heart opener.

Main characters here are -- you guessed it, Nacho is a specimen of junk food and Lolita is an enticing little girl who has previously been taken advantage of... by a peculiar man. (The less said about him the better.)

Kidding! This Nacho is a rare and majestic bird, a gorgeous pitacoche.

Then he meets a lovely swallow, Lolita.

Could the two birds have a future? They're so different from each other.

FIVE STARS, in honor of readers more sentimental than I.

The story is one about love and friendship that even young children can understand. The illustrations are fabulous and keep young listener's attention while you read long narrative passages. See why this is a 'buy' for our reviewer.

I absolutely adored this book. I thought the illustrations were wonderful and I loved the use of vibrant and brilliant colors. I think that this book had a cute story line and I like that the author put her own twist on a classic Mexican folk tale. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a folktale about Hispanic culture.

I think that this book would be good for both teaching students about the culture of Mexico and the South West United states and how they influence each other. The book takes place in California, but you can definitely see the heavy influence of Mexican culture through both the illustrations and through the use of some Spanish in the text throughout the book. I also think this book could be used if students were studying birds. It could be helpful to teach students about migration and to teach students that although not all birds look exactly the same that they are all still birds. Nacho is clearly a made up type of bird, so students could also compare him to real birds as well.

I think this book did a very nice job of depicting how the cultures of Mexico and the United States can be related and how they can mix together. I think it show how the US is a melting pot of various cultural influences as well.

This book tells a Mexican folktale about the swallows returning yearly to San Juan Capistrano, California. It stresses the value of faithfulness in relationships.

This is a beautiful story of an unlikely love between a beautiful and mythial pitacoche bird and a swallow of San Juan Capistrano. Based on a Mexican folktale, the odd couple learn to love each other and the pitacoche helps to make the valley of San Juan fertile.