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) 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 and blood. It also referred to witches and related malevolent folkloric beings. The "strix" is described as a large-headed bird with transfixed eyes, rapacious beak, greyish white wings, and hooked claws in Ovid's "Fasti". This is the only thorough description of the strix in Classical literature. Elsewhere, it is described as being dark-colored. The "strīx" () was a nocturnally crying creature which positioned its feet upwards and head below, according to