birds of a feather…a fabulous flock of five books about birding

Look up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard, written and illustrated by Annette LeBlanc Cate

Robins hopping across the grass, drilling their beaks into the earth, snagging a worm.
Pigeons strutting, flashing their metallic sheen, nabbing bits of stale popcorn on the sidewalk.
Mallard ducks, emerald capped, lounging on ponds with their soft-brown mates.

One nice thing about birds is that no matter where you are, there are almost certainly birds about for you to watch and enjoy, and even these most common birds I’ve just mentioned have a beauty and delight worth noticing.

Annette Cate has written a fantastic new book packed with sunny advice on how to begin looking more carefully at the birds around us. She is all about urging us to observe, sketch, and identify these feathered beauties. “The point is,” she says, “spending time outside observing life and drawing in a sketchbook can help you to see the world in a whole new way.” Exactly true!

Cate entices us into the hobby of birding and nature-sketching with fascinating information parceled out in manageable bits, punctuated with loads of witty banter by birds and humans alike in conversation bubbles that beg to be read, and illustrated profusely in imaginative, sketchbook styling.

Gorgeous color wheels of birds, close-ups of feet and beaks to help us hone in on what to spot first, bird behaviors to watch for, a lesson on field markings, a guide to field guides, and short introductions to topics like bird ranges, classification, migration…there is so much information crammed into this one small book, handled so artistically and winsomely. It’s not a one-sitting book; it’s a lovely resource to have on hand along with sketchbook, colored pencils, and beginning field guide (as well as some cookies, probably) to open up a glorious doorway to nature study, outdoor ramblings, and the wonder of birding for kids and adults of all ages.

Birds of a Feather, by Francisco Pittau and Bernadette Gervais

Holy Moly! It’s a book! It’s a puzzle! It’s a treasure chest! It’s so much fun, and it’s all about birds!

This jumbo-sized book (15 x 11 inches) contains one heavy-duty page after another filled with fascinating and clever flaps to lift, pictures to pop up, and puzzle pieces to flip. Riveting illustrations. Highly unusual displays. Oodles of bird facts. Irresistable!

Flip up a silhouette to learn about the bird with that crazy crest or those knobby knees. Choose from a dozen large flaps with close ups of gorgeous wings to find out which bird sports these beautifully colored feathers. Open the variously-speckled and sized eggs to see who will hatch.  Match up all the right flaps to construct one of six exotic birds. Unlock the jigsaw pieces to discover who is spying out at you.

Originally published in France, this is one of the most unusual books I’ve seen, and sure to spark curiosity in anyone with a heartbeat. Grab this one for kids of any age or just for yourself!

For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson, by Peggy Thomas, illustrated by Laura Jacques

Roger Tory Peterson’s field guides to birds are some of the most familiar on the shelves, but I’m going to bet that most of us know very little about this man and his vast contributions to conservation as well as ornithology.

Like so many naturalists, Peterson fell in love with nature as a child (a great reason, by the way, to get your kids out of doors from babyhood on!) pressing wildflowers, collecting moths, and eagerly participating in his local Junior Audubon Club. A chance encounter with a startled flicker inspired his lifelong study of birds.

Peterson grew up at a time when the only available field guides to birds were scholarly tomes whose descriptions were quite unhelpful for identifying birds in the wild. His painstaking observations, sketches, and notes allowed him to teach others how to identify birds much more easily, and his first, innovative field guide was an instant success. In addition, his lifelong studies led him to decry the effect of DDT years before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, and to travel the world advocating for the protection of birds.

Peggy Thomas’ biography is an interesting account of a man who recevied an incredible array of honors throughout his life, yet is largely unknown by most of us today. Fascinating details of his childhood, his birding techniques, and his life of devotion to these lovely creatures, are engagingly written for ages 7 and older. It’s a bit lengthier than many picture-book biographies, with mixed media illustrations and some nice ink drawings.

Bird Talk: What Birds Are Saying and Why, written and illustrated by Lita Judge

Far more easy than spotting birds, is hearing them. Chirping, warbling, pipping, cawing…if we hold still and listen, so many sounds meet us. What do all these sounds mean?

Sometimes they mean: Pay attention to me!
Sometimes: Be careful there, young’un!
Sometimes: I’m hungry, mama!

Lita Judge has provided this delightful sort of catalog of birds, describing the various calls they make and their purposes. Her magnificent illustrations flood the pages with life and delight and motion. The darling-ness of chicks and the strength of hawks in flight, the ostentatious dances and displays, and the glorious array of colorful feathers grab our attention with every page turn.

Perfect tidbits of information accompany each spotlit bird, expanding our sense of wonder as we begin to grasp the array of ideas communicated by their music, as well as other types of bird behaviors.  It’s an incredibly engaging book for preschoolers and up.

Included is a list with thumbnail illustrations of each bird and a few more facts plus their habitats and ranges, a glossary of bird terminology,  and a lovely Author’s Note tracing Lita Judge’s fascinating background in birding, growing up with ornithologists for grandparents. Love this book!

Puffling Patrol, by Ted and Betsy Lewin

Off the coast of Iceland, a cluster of islands host “one of the largest puffin colonies in the world.” The birds migrate here by the hundreds of thousands in springtime, living in burrows in the rocky cliffs.

Now, here’s the odd bit. When it’s time to take off again in August, some of the little newbies get muddled by the lights of the small towns and land in the street rather than heading for the sea. This is a problem because they can’t take off again from street level. They need to launch themselves into the sea breezes from cliffside.

Puffling Patrol to the rescue! Out go the local kids, armed with boxes and flashlights, to gather up these little fellows, get them inspected by the team of biologists, then re-launch them from the beaches.

Ted and Betsy Lewin have quite the dream gig, traveling about the world experiencing these amazing places, meeting such interesting people, then writing and illustrating it for all of us to thoroughly enjoy! I certainly have enjoyed many, many of their books. This one is absolutely fascinating, as we learn about these delightful birds, the research being done in Iceland, and follow twin 8-year-olds as they care for the birds in their unique island homeland.

Of course, the writing and illustrations are superb. There are several additional pages with facts about puffins and information about an enormous volcanic eruption 40 years ago which threatened these islanders’ homes, plus a glossary and handy pronunciation guide for those Icelandic words sprinkled in the text.  Fantastic choice for kindergarteners and up.

Here are Amazon links for this fine-feathered collection:

Look Up!: Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard
Birds of a Feather
For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson
Bird Talk: What Birds Are Saying and Why
Puffling Patrol

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a list of…five cheery books to welcome Spring!

And Then It’s Spring, written by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

Spring doesn’t start with green; that radiant, light-dappled, yellow-green of sunshine filtering through brand new leaves.  Nuh-uh.  It starts with brown.  Brown, dead grass.  Brown, clumpy fields.  Brown, dry stalks of last year’s asters.

Hopeful people, however, plant seeds into that brownness.  And after some cool, spring rains, and warm, up-and-coming sun, and a great deal of patient waiting…and waiting..and waiting  – THEN comes green!  Glory be!

I love this book!  It’s brand new, and I’ve been waiting…mostly patiently…for my library copy to come in, knowing I was in for a great treat.  Ahhhh…it is even better than I was imagining!  Julie Fogliano’s quiet words express perfectly the longing for those first brushstrokes of green to transform the earth into springtime.   Just the right touches of humor, tinges of disappointment, needlings of fretting, and a heart pit-a-patting with hope, before final, great satisfaction.  Understated, simple, and so, so pleasant.

Meanwhile, lucky us, the artwork is by Caldecott-winner Erin Stead.  Her soft, woodblock-print and pencil illustrations brilliantly follow one charming boy and his faithful dog (plus a couple other animal pals) from the chilly nip of winter’s exit to the barefoot warmth of full-blown spring.  A subtly warming palette of colors as the season slowly progresses is just one of many clever markers of progress.  Even though that ground stays stubbornly brown, changes are in the air.  Can you spot them?

Truly — this book is destined to be a great favorite for many of you.  Don’t miss it!

Who Likes Rain? written and illustrated by Wong Herbert Yee

When the rain streams down the windowpane, one little girl gets to thinking, and asking a lot of questions.  Who likes rain?  And who doesn’t?  She comes up with lots of answers to her own questions, as she gazes out the window, then puts on her egg-yolk yellow mackintosh and froggy-green galoshes to venture out into the wet world.

Her wonderings are written by Yee in pleasantly rhyming lines, cleverly presented so we get to guess what she’s about to say.  “When it rains, who’s the first to scat?  I know! Do you? Mew, mew…(turn the page…) it’s the cat!

Charming colored pencil drawings follow this perky little one as she meanders in the rainy neighborhood, merrily splashing and peering and finding out interesting things.  The small format, and small heroine, and child-size thoughts combine to create a warm, delightful book to share with  toddlers.

Doing the Garden, written and illustrated by Sarah Garland

Spring has come.  A time for dreaming about seeds and poring over seed catalogs.  So, mom bundles her two charges into the pram and walks down to the garden shop.  The three of them wander about, gazing at bewildering numbers of potted pansies and hanging baskets and young trees in sturdy buckets.  Finally they make their choices — including a beloved garden gnome spotted by the littlest fellow –lug them home, and get to work planting.   By day’s end — voila! — some lovely growing things are nestled in their garden, and it’s time to enjoy them with tea and biscuits.  And a nap!

I love Sarah Garland’s work.  A Brit, her young families have that same comfy, honest, mussy feel that Shirley Hughes achieves; so endearing.  Bright, loose, watercolors capture the plump, sturdy bodies of the children, mom’s grace and grit in the face of numerous hazards, and the exuberance of outings and gardening.  Very few words, but loads of jolly, companionable, life!  Perfect for the very youngest of listeners.

Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest: Where Birds Begin, written and illustrated by Irene Kelly

Oddments of yarn; strands of spider silk; tufts of moss; dollar bills.  What do these have in common?  They all act as building materials for birds nests!

Nests are fascinating, from the massive, muddled-looking piles of sticks constructed by powerful bald eagles, to the teensy, delicate, silken cups woven by hummingbirds.  Some birds build with seaweed.  Some design double-decker, hide-the-babies nests!  Some shelter inside a cactus.  Some festoon their nests with colorful bits of trash…and pots and pans!  Truly.  Some build no nest at all.

Intrigued yet?!  Irene Kelly’s book is a fabulous catalog of many, many birds and their nest-making habits.  Every page is so interesting, you’d think there can’t be more amazement ahead…but there you’d be wrong! This book is crammed with wonder from start to finish.  A world map at the end shows us where the 40 birds in this book live — there are some from all seven continents!

Kelly’s illustrations, in watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and pen and ink, are bold, bright fantastic glimpses of all this variety.  A showy emerald-and-ultramarine bowerbird dazzles us; a whisper-soft tailorbird peeks out from her cleverly-stitched, leaf pouch; a blue-footed booby looks as ridiculous as her name sounds as she warms her egg with her aqua webbed feet.

Lay-outs with words winding here and perched there help convey a wonderful lot of information without pages appearing dense with text. Early elementary right on up will thoroughly enjoy this one!

City Dog, Country Frog, words by Mo Willems, pictures by Jon J. Muth

It’s spring, and for this ecstatic dog, it’s also his very first day in the country.  Woohoo!  No leash!  Just running and chasing and cavorting across broad, lemon-lime swathes of grass.

Very quickly, City Dog spies someone odd.  Small.  Plump. Googly eyes.  An unknown entity.  It’s Country Frog.

It doesn’t take but two ticks for these guys to become great friends.  All spring, they play country games, taught to the dog by yours truly, the frog.  All summer they play city games, taught by the dog to a frog who’s quite a good sport.  Next comes fall, a time for lounging and reflecting.  Then winter — alas! — a very lonesome time for City Dog, whose friend has vanished.  When spring rolls around again, will Dog have a friend?

This simple text contains two incredibly engaging characters, generous splashes of exuberance, buckets of warm friendship, just the right dash of repetition, and a sunny ending.  The watercolor illustrations by Jon Muth are simply fabulous.  You will want to cut them out and hang them on your child’s bedroom walls.  Really.  The changing color palettes for the changing seasons are gorgeous.  The postures of this quintessential dog and his frog buddy will make you smile, guaranteed.  And how does he capture so much emotion and expression in the angle of a dog’s ear, the joggly-curving line of a frog’s grin?  Brilliant and beautiful.

This is a feel-good book, and that’s perfect for spring time…or any time.  Ages 2 and up, up, up.

Here are Amazon links for these cheeriup-cheerio-cheeriup springtime stories:

And Then It’s Spring

Who Likes Rain?

Doing the Garden

Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest: Where Birds Begin

City Dog, Country Frog

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nonfiction nuggets…a look at creatures whose homes are far from shore

Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage, written and illustrated by Sophie Webb

The Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean is a 7.7 million-square-mile area — larger than Africa! — teeming with wildlife who are terribly tricky to study due to their vast home and its distance from land.  Sophie Webb, a naturalist specializing in birds, and author of several fabulous science books for children, made a four-month research trip into this tantalizing, far-flung world, and wrote this book to tell us all about it!

Webb writes this book, like her others,  in a journal format, which gives even its scientific information a friendly, personal feel.  She also illustrates it with colorful, watercolor paintings, detailing interesting bits about life aboard ship, as well as the curious birds, fish, and mammals she encounters at sea.

There’s a great deal of information packed in these pages.  We learn about several species of dolphins, and the efforts to restore their populations after the toll tuna-fishing has taken on them.  Webb tells us what we know, as well as what we still are wondering about;  facts, as well as puzzling questions; both of which are helpful for developing understanding.  We also check in with thousands of seabirds, numerous, assorted whales, shimmering bursts of flying fish, yellowfin tuna,  squid, and a bunch of tiny creatures who end up being food for these bigger fellows!

We learn about the effects of pollution and fisheries on various sea creatures, stop at several tropical ports of call, gaze at the spangled sky far from any human lighting, and hunker down in the cabin during some wildly windy, rainy days.  What a delightful way to learn so much, and develop a thirst to know more.

The journal entries are prolifically illustrated, sometimes with full page, richly colored, glimpses of sea life; sometimes with small cameos of the scientists at work.  Intriguing graphs, helpful diagrams, close-up views, imagined deep-sea realms, all complement the information extremely well.  For upper-elementary and up, perhaps a bit younger if you read aloud a bit at a time, this is a fabulous way to learn, and to lure kids into a life of observing, caring, protecting, exploring the natural world around them.

Here’s the Amazon link:  Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage

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nonfiction nuggets…about Mr. Audubon and bird-banding…from the orange marmalade archives

Originally published August 19, 2010

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon, by Jacqueline Davies, illustrated by Melissa Sweet 

Most of us know the name of John James Audubon, the most famous painter of birds, who was born in Haiti, raised in France, but spent a great portion of his life tramping through the wilds of North America observing birds and capturing them on canvas.  His large, life-size works hang in museums around the world.  

Apparently Audubon captures the fancy of biographers, as I have seen quite a lot of biographies for children about his work as a painter.  The Boy Who Drew Birds, focuses not on his painting, however, but on his groundbreaking work in bird-banding. 

Audubon conducted the first-ever bird banding on this continent when he banded the Pewee Flycatcher, now called Eastern Phoebe, in the Pennsylvania woods near his home, then waited through the winter, until he triumphantly found the banded birds the following spring in the same location. 

These experiments were done at a time when scientists were baffled by the disappearance and reappearance of songbirds seasonally.  They simply did not believe it was possible for such tiny creatures to migrate, and resorted to wild theories such as Aristotle’s notion that birds gathered together in great tangled masses and froze themselves under water for the winter, to thaw and fly again the following spring.   Audubon helped prove that these pint-sized marvels do in fact migrate, and in many cases return to the very same nest year after year, with their offspring nesting nearby. 

This is a well-written account of this facet of Audubon’s work.  It reads like a story; it is crammed with fascinating, colorful, descriptive details; yet it is very personal, with Audubon’s wondering thoughts leading the way throughout the book.  The illustrations are beautiful and highly-varied.  Pages of mixed media collage, depicting Audubon’s nature collections for example, are interspersed with watercolor paintings or a sketch from a nature notebook.  Each page is quite different from the one before, making it a delight just to turn the page and see what’s next! 

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a list of…five books for nature lovers…from the orange marmalade archives

Originally published August 2010

Clarice Bean: What Planet are You From?, story and pictures by Lauren Child

Clarice Bean is an 8-year-old girl with a hilarious, blunt manner of narrating her quirky observations of life.  In this episode, her teacher, Mrs. Wilberton, assigns the class a project called “The Environment.”  Coincidentally, her big brother Kurt hears about a fine, old tree in their neighborhood which is marked for removal.  Kurt is aghast at the plan and determines to “become an ecowarrior”, pitching a tent by the tree and making a “plan of action to stop all the destruction.”  The Bean family all meander their way into this project, making Free the Tree posters, cooking up bowls of spaghetti for the tree-dwellers’ dinner, and getting their pictures in the local paper. Throughout the whole story we hear Clarice’s wry comments on everything from the quantity of hair spray used by her sister, to her ketchup-on-toast concoctions (which create almost no dishes to wash!)

This is a laugh-out-loud account of a loving, off-beat family who band together for the sake of a tree.  It is a happy way of elevating concern for the environment and the small things we can do to make a difference, while not sounding like a PBS documentary.  Child’s illustrations are genius, with the loose, eccentric Bean family front-and-center, and mixed-media ingredients collected from recycled things — magazines, photographs, fabric and newspaper — flooding the pages with loud colors and textures.  Fantastic!

Frogs, words and photographs by Nic Bishop

I really, really love this book about frogs!!

Why the enthusiasm? 

First, Bishop’s photographs are fabulous, from the brilliant-red strawberry dart poison frog, to the teeny-tiny glass frog with its transparent skin, to the broad, comical face of a jumbo-sized African bullfrog.  We are captivated by a crazy pink tongue darting out to capture a caterpillar,  stunned by a mossy-looking camouflaged wonder, and delighted by some truly adorable red-eyed tree frogs.  These full-page photos are bursting with the colorful, awesome splendor of frogs.

Then, the text is…well…perfect.  Not an overwhelming amount of information, yet chock full of  ”you’ve got to hear this!” tidbits.  We learn about the massive appetites of horned frogs, the tremendous air-travel of gliding frogs, the uncanny mothering care of the strawberry dart poison frog, and much, much  more.  All of it is written in a friendly, approachable tone which even a 5-year-old could readily understand but which does not talk down for even a moment.  This is an excellent choice for communicating the wonders of the animal world to your kids.  I am very impressed with Bishop’s work and am eager to find more of his books and collaborations in my library.

Planting the Trees of Kenya:  The Story of Wangari Maathai, written and illustrated by Claire A. Nivola

Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work as founder of the Green Belt Movement.  This organization encourages poor rural women in Kenya to plant trees in order to combat the terrible effects of deforestation including erosion, disruption to the water cycle, loss of cooking fuel and income, malnutrition — the domino effect seems to go on and on.  This book tells the story of her life; of growing up in the fruitful highlands of Kenya back in the 1940s, of her education in the U.S., and of her dismay upon returning to Kenya at the environmental damage occuring there.  It tells of her beginning to teach the women to collect seeds from native trees, to plant and nurture those seedlings, and to expand this movement until over 30 million trees have been planted across Kenya.

The watercolor pictures Nivola has done for her book are very pleasing, full of the beautiful, varied greens of hills covered with vegetation, the golden browns of parched, thirsty land, and the colorful, flowing clothing of the African women and children dotting the countryside and villages.  The text itself is clear and uncluttered, full of hope rather than pessimism, even when speaking of the sad subject of deforestation.  A lengthy Author’s Note tells much more about Ms. Maathai’s life and work including her livestock loan programs, political activism, and numerous conflicts with the Kenyan government.  A worthy book about a woman doing hard, worthwhile, highly-beneficial work.

An Egg is Quiet, text by Dianna Aston, illustrations by Sylvia Long

This is a gorgeous book. 

Sylvia Long’s watercolors of dozens and dozens of different eggs are definitely the stars of the show.  She gives us beautiful blue robin eggs, round, garnet-red salmon eggs, artistically-speckled scarlet tanager eggs, eggs streaked with black, eggs tiny as peas, yellow eggs, orangey-bronze eggs, lobster eggs, shark eggs… all beautfully rendered in sweet color on creamy white pages. The limited text is hand-lettered in brown ink, adding to the loveliness of the entire work of art.

Textually, it is a very simple book.  The wonders of eggs are grouped together loosely on pages captioned, “An egg is colorful” or “An egg is shapely” or “An egg is textured.”  Small yet very interesting bits of information are given about the eggs featured on that page.  For example, we learn that an ostrich egg can weigh up to 8 pounds, while it would take 2,000 hummingbird eggs to equal that — this  on the page titled “Eggs come in different sizes.”  In the end, we find that, although eggs are generally quiet, they do suddenly become quite noisy when their dwellers hatch out!  The final pages in the book feature small, brilliant drawings of the many birds, insects, and other creatures which get their start in eggs.

This is a lovely book to gaze at with a child, to marvel over; it inspires us to see beauty in the small wonders around us, and perhaps even to try our hand at a watercolor painting of that magical treasure chest called an egg.

When the Wolves Returned — Restoring Nature’s Balance in Yellowstone, by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, with photographs by Dan and Cassie Hartman

In the earliest years of Yellowstone National Park, the chief purpose of the park was to protect its geological fancies – mighty geysers, bubbling mud pots, and colorful layers of rock —  for tourists to enjoy.  The park’s wildlife was considered a side attraction. Hunting trips for elk were a main draw.  Park officials believed that ridding the area of wolves would save more elk for the tourist-hunters, so they issued a bounty on the wolves.  By  1926, the wolves were completely gone.

Over time, the absence of this predator wreaked havoc in the Yellowstone ecosystem, with elk herds growing out of control, coyote populations posing problems for smaller mammals, pronghorn antelope severely threatened, trees damaged by over-grazing, which thus eliminated songbirds, and so on and so on.  Gradually, scientists understood what had caused this imbalance, and a program was begun to re-introduce wolves in the Yellowstone area.  This book tells the fascinating story of all the troubles resulting from removing an actor in an ecosystem, and then the hopeful story of the  repair-work done when that actor is returned.  For, in just about 10 years since the wolves were returned, the ripple effects on various animal and plant populations in Yellowstone has been quite amazing. 

This is a compelling story with a great deal of excellent information accompanied by terrific photographs.   Dan Hartman and 16-year-old Cassie are a father-daughter photography team; Cassie was just 10 years old when she had her first photo published in an outdoors magazine!  Great encouragement for a budding nature photographer!

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nonfiction nuggets…eggs and birds and wonder

Hatch!, written and illustrated by Roxie Munro

I love finding nonfiction books which are not just fact-machines; whose words and artwork awaken a sense of wonder, and curiosity, and appreciation for the beauty and elegance of the natural world.  Hatch! is that kind of book.  Published this year, it’s the kind of book that, if I’d had it when my kids were small, I know we would have loved to worn-out splendor.

Munro leads off with a page devoted to the fascination of birds — the amazing variety of birds and their eggs; some brainteasing questions  about the tallest, smallest, and fastest.  Do you know which birds can sleep while flying?!  After this little appetizer, Munro launches into the main course…

…a two-page spread with a glorious illustration of one bird’s eggs on one side, and some clues to the bird’s identity on the other.  “They belong to a songbird whose name was inspired by the male’s bright colors, which resemble the coat of arms of a seventeenth-century Maryland governor…”  and on she goes, giving us intriguing information about the bird as she invites us to guess its identity.  These are not boring, same-old-same-old tidbits.  They are sufficiently in-depth to satisfy readers with a good background in birds.  Then we…

…turn the page, to find another glorious two-page spread, this time a gorgeous painting in colored ink of our bird in its native habitat, its particular nest, and the young birds who have hatched out of those mysterious eggs we saw.  So beautiful and so rewarding!  Here again, Munro gives us another little cloud of interesting information about our new bird friend, now identified properly.  And, once we’ve admired our bird, we look at the bottom of the page to see…

…a short list of other creatures who share this habitat with our bird, and which Munro has tucked into the painting for us to find!  Can you spot the porcupine?  the coyote?  So much fun!

There are nine egg-and-bird sets here, in habitats ranging from ice to desert, from cliff-top to African savanna.  The book is an extra-big size, so the paintings of the beautiful eggs are sweetly large and the habitat spreads seem to fill the room.  Now is the season for nesting, and hatching, and feeding, and thrilling to the wonder of birds.  Do yourself and your kids a favor by drawing your attention to these creatures.  This book is an exceptional treat to help you on your way.

Here’s the Amazon link: Hatch!

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a list of…five astonishing accounts about assorted animals!

Match the fascinations of the Animal Kingdom with fantastic authors and artists and you’ve got some riveting reading!  Here are five to look for:

Just One Bite: 11 Animals and Their Bites at Life Size!, by Lola Schaefer, illustrated by Geoff Waring

Ahhhh!  This is a splendid, oversized, creative look at what animals eat!

Beginning with a lowly earthworm tunneling in the rich brown earth, we are shown the freckle-sized bit of dirt he can eat in one schwoop.  Such a tiny morsel!

Moving up a notch in size, we see a butterfly delicately perched on a scarlet hibiscus, and we see the three small golden drops of nectar she can slurp up in just one sip.

On we move through our eleven guest star animals, gradually increasing in size; animals on land, in the sea, on wing, each taking their own bite size portions of a favorite food.  So interesting!  What does a komodo dragon eat in one bite?  How about a gorgeous blue parrot?  Finally we come to the granddaddy of them all, the sperm whale, gulping down a giant squid!  This bite is SO large, the pages have to fold out to accomodate it!  Awesome!

Just a tiny bit of text on each page, leaving plenty of room for us to glory in the brilliant, bright, bold illustrations of these creatures and their chosen delicacies.  The book concludes with an attractive array of paragraphs telling us more intriguing information about each of the eleven featured animals and their eating habits. Brilliant concept, exceptionally well done.

Hip-Pocket Papa, by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Alan Marks

Perhaps if you are a herpetologist, you’ve heard of the tiny fellow featured in this book.  (That’s a frog specialist, just by the way.  I had to look that up.)

Otherwise, I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the incredibly interesting hip-pocket frog!  You really ought to make his acquaintance. 

He is tiny:  no bigger than your thumbnail.
He lives in Australia’s temperate rainforest.
And…
He is a Very Responsible Fellow! 

Not only does he stand guard over the glob of eggs hidden among the leaves on the forest floor, but when the eggs hatch, and the teensy-weensy tadpoles emerge, he maneuvers his way down to them, and lets those little tadpoles squiggle their way up his back legs into some special, top-secret pockets he’s got on his hips!  Then, he goes about his days, nourishing himself, making sure his skin stays wet for the sake of his taddies, escaping from predators…for a month…until the time comes for him to find a new home for the tadpoles who have now morphed into froglets, and who squirm out of papa’s pockets to live on their own.  Crazy!!!

This is an excellent, clear, succinct account of this marvelous species, and it is accompanied by really beautiful watercolor illustrations, vibrating with the emerald greens, glowing golds, and amethyst blues of the rainforest.  Other unusual Australian animals appearing in the story are given a brief introduction in an animal glossary, and books for further reading are noted, for those whose curiosity is peaked.  Great for ages 6 and up.

White Owl, Barn Owl, by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Michael Foreman

A hale-and-hearty young girl and her smashing Grandpa team up to install a huge nesting box in a grand old oak tree, gianting up from the frosty fields.  It’s a nesting box for barn owls,  and as they install it, Grandpa answers his granddaughters curious questions about this mysterious bird.  After they’ve got the box set up, there’s nothing left but to wait patiently, night after night after night, hoping a barn owl will choose to come.

And…finally one beautiful owl, with pearly, heart-shaped face and dark shining eyes, does come!  In silence, the girl and her dear Grandpa watch the breathtaking sight; watch him fly, and perch, and catch a mouse.  Listen to the utter absence of noise made by his soft wings, and the twittering and hissing of his owlets hidden in the nesting box. 

This is a sweet, quiet story, and the watercolor and pastel illustrations are equally lovely and whisper-soft.  Along with the main story line, Davies captions the illustrations with interesting owl facts.  And interspersed with the glimpses of the feathery owl in the purple nighttime, Foreman gives us cameos of this charming pair of people who clearly adore it.  These blendings are done brilliantly, making this a book that will easily hold the attention of young children.  The book concludes with information about nesting boxes in case you want to try setting one out yourself. 

Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed…and Revealed, Ear-Tickling Poems by David M. Schwartz and Yael Schy, with Eye-Tricking Photos by Dwight Kuhn

This is a fantastic little book, packed with information, that pulls young readers and listeners into the challenge of spotting a camouflaged animal concealed in its surroundings.  And they are mighty tricky to find, let me assure you!

First up is a gorgeous photograph of woods in autumn with brilliant golden leaves on the trees and carpeting the forest floor.  Wait… There’s an animal hidden in this photo?!  You’ll have to look and then look harder to spot the coyote peering out at you.  Amazing! 

Each two-page spread in this book has a poem on one side, giving clues as to the kind of creature we’re supposed to be finding, and a beautiful, full-color, photograph on the other, in which that animal is craftily concealed.  Can’t find it?  Then…open up the flap on the photo page and you will see the same photo with all the colors subdued except for that camouflaged creature.  Aha!  So very sneaky!

On that folded-out page, a highly informative account of the animal  is written up,  along with several more photos.  These paragraphs are very well-written with details to fascinate anyone from mid-elementary and up, making this a nice book for a wide age-range.  Use it with the very young who are patient enough to look carefully for the hidden animals, and for older children who enjoy the photo-challenge as well as the information.  Very clever book, and there’s a second volume in print for those who want some more!

Marsupials, written and photographed by Nic Bishop

If you remember… I love Nic Bishop’s work!  He is outstanding!

For this book, he spent six months in Australia, wandering among kangaroos and sneaking up on wombats.  He wants us to pity him for the heat he had to endure, but…I don’t know.  Sounds pretty amazing to me!

Anyway.

In this slim volume, Bishop describes and displays a host of these unusual mammals whose names we’ve never heard before — boodies and bilbies, potoroos and dibblers — they’re all here!

With his stunning, painstaking photography, Bishop brings us face to face with soft fuzzy-faced kangaroos, charming, sleepy koalas, quirky, bright-eyed bilbies, dunnarts and quolls, and many more marsupials.  He then uses his happy knack of providing just enough information about these guys, written plainly and winsomely, to give us a welcome introduction to their world.  These are odd little animals with a host of peculiar habits, so the descriptions are never lacking in color and spice and wonder!

Bishop includes a personal note describing some of his adventures and processes in capturing these photographs which is very interesting as well.  He’s won multiple awards for his work, for very good reason.  You can’t miss with one of his books!

Here are Amazon links for all these titles:
Just One Bite
Hip-Pocket Papa
White Owl, Barn Owl
Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed… and Revealed
Nic Bishop Marsupials

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nonfiction nuggets…birds are fascinating creatures

Outside and Inside Birds, by Sandra Markle

Did you know that many birds have more neck bones than a giraffe?  Or that hummingbirds eat twice their weight in nectar every day?  Have you seen the hollow insides of a bird’s bone, or what an egg looks like while it’s still inside a kiwi bird? 

This little book is crammed with interesting information about birds, written in a clear, engaging style.  Beginning with a look at the various features that enable a bird to fly, Markle moves on to discuss eating habits, including specialized beaks or feet which allow birds to eat their own particular kinds of food, and an explanation of birds’ digestive systems complete with photos.  She also tells us about breathing, sight, hearing, and eggs. 

There are a lot of very nice photographs in the book, and Markle uses them to illustrate specific aspects of what she is explaining.  Close up photos of a downy pelican chick eating partially digested fish from his parent’s enormous mouth, or of a bone-speckled owl pellet, or a grebe just in the process of laying her egg, are incredible windows into the world of birds.

Much of the information in the book is simple enough for even a kindergartener to understand and enjoy, while some of the vocabulary and concepts will be better appreciated by older elementary kids.  Pair this with a David Attenborough bird documentary and you will have some very bird-savvy folk on your hands! 

Here’s the Amazon link:   Outside and Inside Birds

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a list of…five books to welcome Spring

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors, by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski

In Spring,
Red sings
from treetops:
cheer-cheer-cheer,
each note dropping
like a cherry
into my ear.

Red turns
the maples feathery,
sprouts in rhubarb spears;
Red squirms on the road
after rain.

Red Sings from Treetops, a 2010 Caldecott Honor Book, is an imaginative, poetical look at the seasons, jammed with clever metaphors and paintings starring color.

Beginning with spring, Sidman focuses on the greens and yellows, blues and pinks, that make up the fresh world.  Moving on “purple pours into summer evenings one shadow at a time,” in fall, “green is tired” and sighs with relief since it is brown’s turn to take over, while in winter “white whispers, floats, clumps, traces its wet finger on branches and stumps.” In these verses, colors are not only seen, but heard, tasted, smelled, and felt.  A nice pushing out of the boundaries.

Zagarenski’s award-winning illustrations are mixed media paintings.  True to the theme of the book, the colors are gorgeous, inventive, complex.  The paintings themselves have a whimsical, folk art feel, full of exuberance, or quietness, or warmth, or frost, as called for.  A delightful, lovely book to awaken us to spring and a whole new cycle of seasons.

Rainy Day!, by Patricia Lakin, pictures by Scott Nash

Sam, Pam, Will and Jill are four exuberant crocodiles.  Vivid green, bursting with energy, erupting with LOUD remarks!  Definitely needing to burn off some steam outdoors.  But – oh dear – it’s raining.  Well, what of it? decide Sam, Pam, Will and Jill.  They optimistically and resolutely don rainy day apparel and head outside for a good time in the rain.

Many unexpected turns-of-event await them, however, in that rainy, foggy, growing-wilder-weather.  Slightly spooky, slightly scary, slightly tumultuous surprises keep cropping up.  What are they to do?  Fortunately, a large-dark-and-shaggy stranger happens along and guides them to a warm, dry, delightful spot, perfect for passing this inclement day.

Here’s a boisterous tale, with zany, eye-popping illustrations to match, perfect for reading with aplomb to pre-schoolers.  Cheerful smiles and giggles guaranteed!  There are several other Sam, Pam, Will, and Jill adventures available when you get hooked.

And the Good Brown Earth, written and illustrated by Kathy Henderson

Joe is a very lucky 4-ish lad, because he has a dandy Gram who loves to garden with him.  This is the sweet account of their gardening adventures throughout the year.

We begin in the fall, when Gram and Joe prepare the earth for a winter sleep.  When spring is in the air, Gram and Joe are ready to rake and plant, install scarecrows against hungry birds, weed, water…and do a little singing, splashing and strawberry-snitching as well.  Finally, after a lovely hot summer vacation at the beach, Gram and Joe return to a fantastic, lush garden ready for gathering  and feasting.

Despite all their labors, there is another character in the book who does the bulk of the work.  That is the good brown earth.  Lying dormant over the winter, receiving the tiny seeds in spring, soaking up summer sunshine and rain…the good brown earth just keeps on doing what the good brown earth does best.  It’s the miracle of the earth and of massive pumpkins growing from tiny little seeds, that is the main source of celebration in this account.

Henderson’s handsome, warm, appealing  illustrations portray an active little boy, a happy, youthful, funky Gram, and an enchanting, beautiful earth to rejoice in.  Coming out of the UK where, as we know, gardening is in the blood, this is simply a lovely work of art.

Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City, written and illustrated by Barbara Bash

Such a fantastic addition to birding books for kids:  a book specifically about  birds who live in urban areas.  Especially if you’re a city-dweller, Bash holds out a helpful hand, describing the fascinating  birding that’s possible even without vast acres of meadowland or pine forests outside your front door.

Interesting details are provided here about pigeons, sparrows, finches, owls, swallows, swifts, nighthawks, falcons, crows, and other species who have managed to adapt their ways to the concrete and pavement, skyscrapers and bridges, noise and bustle of North American cities.  Where does each of these birds like to build its nest, and why?  What are the best places to look to find the secret hiding places of pigeons, or chimney swifts?  Who might like to lay their eggs up in the hollow of a stoplight?  Or inside a lamppost?  Or in the gravel by a railroad track?  How do citydwellers help peregrine falcons feel welcome? There’s a heap of great information here in a very manageable amount of text.

Very attractive watercolor illustrations capture the architecture and urban surroundings described, as well as particular nests, eggs, and birds.  I found this book highly interesting.  Having raised my children in various settings, some far removed from the typical “look at the robin pulling the worm out of the ground” locations in which most bird books are set, I love this practical, intriguing look at the way nature can be spied in even the most unlikely places.

Mud, by Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Lauren Stringer

Mud, glorious mud!  It squelches, squishes, drips, oozes, plops, and splats soooo nicely!  The warmth of spring wafts in one night, the ground thaws the next day, and suddenly, everywhere, there is mud!

Mary Lyn Ray is definitely acquainted with mud and chooses to exult in it in this book.   With just a sprinkling of well-crafted words, she captures the simplicity and grand glory of mud from a toddler’s point of view.  Meanwhile, Lauren Stringer has magnificently illustrated this Ode to Mud with bold, vibrant, alluring paintings that grab you by the hand and pull you in for a close-up, cheerful, muddy escapade.

This is a delightful book to share with the youngest of listeners at this very outset of  puddle-stomping, mud-pie-making, green-grass-sprouting Spring!  Hoorah!

Here are Amazon links to these titles:

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors
Rainy Day!
And the Good Brown Earth
Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City
Mud

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nonfiction nuggets…what’s soft, mossy-green, smells like honey, booms, chings, and waddles?

Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot, written by Sy Montgomery, photographs by Nic Bishop

Now THIS is how science books should be written!  I search high and low for books like this!!

Fabulous, narrative style; information galore presented clearly and creatively; not a whiff of talking down to children, but instead written so incredibly well that anyone ages 7 or 8 through adult will

Sy Montgomery...and friend

be utterly absorbed; exuding a sense of wonder, curiosity, awe, and delight that a person ought to feel when encountering a fascinating piece of this rich world.

And the photographs!  I love Nic Bishop’s work.  There are loads of photos here. 

Nic Bishop

Nicely-sized. Stunning. Partnering with the text beautifully.  Bishop is obviously a painstaking, brilliant wildlife photographer, who takes a prodigious amount of care in his work.

Really, it’s like getting a National Geographic documentary film…in a hefty picture book.

The subject:  the kakapo parrot, once thought extinct, now being tenderly, intensely cared for on one small New Zealand island in a grand effort to increase the fragile population.  This is a massive parrot — 9 pounds; it is flightless, nocturnal, with sweet, honey-scented feathers, and a curious, playful, affectionate disposition which past kakapo-owners have likened to that of a kitten or a dog!  Easy prey for the human populations that arrived in New Zealand as well as the domestic animals they carried with them and the rats and weasels who also came along for one reason and another, the kakapo shrank from a population in the millions to near-extinction.  At the time of the book, there were 87 being cared for in the wild. 

Montgomery and Bishop document their long-awaited journey to Codfish Island, beautifully describing this rare, unusual parrot, its past, and the present efforts to coax these birds into laying eggs and then to carefully monitor eggs and chicks in order to assure survival.  This book won the 2011 Sibert Award for best informational book, and for very good reason.  Don’t miss it!

Amazon link: Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot (Scientists in the Field Series)

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