Tico and the Golden Wings

This one's got kind of a mixed message. So there's a bird with no wings, and then he wishes that he had golden wings. And a magic bird comes and gives him wings that are made of gold. Before, his friends had been feeding him and taking care of him because he didn't have any wings, and now that he has gold wings they abandon him because they assume that he thinks he's better than him. And then he's dejected and goes and finds somebody who has a problem because his children are sick and he doesn't have any money to get any medicine, and he gives him a golden feather and he is able to get medicine with it. When he gives it away, he gets a black feather in exchange. So he gives away all his golden feathers and when he gets back to his friends, his friends accept him again because he's just like they are. But he says to himself that he knows that he's not just like they are because he has different memories and different dreams.

It's kind of frustrating because it's almost like it says that it's important to be the same as everyone else, but it's also saying that you're going to have to deal with people who don't like you because you're different. It's not saying that his friends are right, per se, and there are people in this world like that. The nice things that he does for other people reward him by changing his outward appearance to a form that others will accept. It's so bizarre. It's like he has to earn the ability to fit in. It's difficult to tell whether it's saying that fitting in is good or not. It's hard to understand this book.