You're Somebody Special Walliwigs!

You're Somebody Special, Walliwigs by Joan Rankin, Margaret K McElderry Books, 1999, 32 pp. OP

When Walliwigs' mother, a foolish parrot, flies off somewhere, he is left alone on a ship's funnel. When he can bear his hunger no longer, he begins squawking, and loudly, to the dismay of the ship's crew. Narrowly missing being put in a pie or being given to the ship's boy's python as dinner, he somehow manages to live until the ship's boy gives him to his Aunt Beth.

Not knowing what to do with this strange bird, Aunt Beth throws him to her chicken Martha. Martha, unlike everyone else, thinks he is marvelous. Even when all the other birds complain that he is scrawny and ugly, Martha believes he is "gorgeous." The chickens are relentless in their nastiness, but Martha is persistent in her love for Walliwigs.

One day Professor Beak, an ornithologist who lives next door, discovers Walliwigs and asks to take him to the Institute of Ornithology. Martha is heartbroken, until. . .