I Am the Cheese he was confused and depressed, convinced that he was alienating his new young adult audience because of the complex and ambiguous story. However, "I Am the Cheese" proved to be a success. "I Am the Cheese" was named to five annual book lists according to the publisher description of the 20th anniversary edition. It won the 1997 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to
Strix (mythology) Europe. "Strega" (obviously derived from Latin "striga") is the Italian term for "witch", and in Romanian "strigăt" means 'scream', "strigoaică" is the name of the Romanian feminine vampire, and "strigoi "is the Romanian male vampire. Both can scream loudly, especially when they become poltergeists—a trait they have in common with the banshees. "Strigăt" is also the Romanian name of the barn owl and of the death's-head hawkmoth. Primary sources Secondary sources Strix (mythology) The strix (plural striges or strixes), in the mythology of classical antiquity, was a bird of ill omen, the product of metamorphosis, that fed on human flesh