Arnie the Darling Starling Author:Margarete Sigl Corbo, Diane Marie Barras, Leslie Morrill (Illustrator) This true story of a talking starling and the grandmother who raised him is as heartwarming a book as you will ever read -- a new classic in the tradition of Rascal, Born Free, and That Quail, Robert. — When Margarete first came upon Arnie, he was just a familiar springtime sight: a baby bird lying helpless in the daisy... more » patch. After unsuccessfully trying to return him to his nest, she took him into her Texas home and raised him as carefully as she had raised her own child, teaching him to perch, to fly, even to talk.. Arnie resisted all attempts top restore him to the wild, preferring steak and canned corn to worms, which frightened him and even developing a taste for wine.
Most astonishing of all, he learned to talk and sing, and he had a remarkable influence on a number of lives. Lenny he young drug addict, paused on the road to self-destruction, so enthralled by Arnie that he carried a dog-eared picture of hm in his wallet. Suzanne, the Vietnamese refugee, learned from Arnie that the wrong home can be a prison and fled to Colorado to start a happier, new life. Margarete's grandson, Travis, who called Arnie "Superbird," gained a new respect for wild creatures, and even her three cats came to love Arnie as one of their own.« less