Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Softly hued backdrops contrast with vividly colored birds that flit and dart across the pages while Ryder's (Mouse Tail Moon) poetic prose beats out a rhythm to match their quick, fluttery movements. "Wild birds dip/ from sky to twig to earth,/ hopping or walking,/ tiptoeing through the grass." Kwas's (A Rumpus of Rhymes: A Book of Noisy Poems) animated watercolors offer varied perspectives of the nearly dozen birds featured. Starlings line telephone wires against a salmon sky at dawn in one spread, while spot illustrations feature images such as a red-winged blackbird squawking at a nervous cat. An unnamed girl with a birdwatching hobby silently witnesses the activity of her feathered friends, from robins and jays to sparrows and geese. Kwas pictures the girl whenever Ryder uses the second person, easing the narrative transition while also offering young readers a chance to step into the girl's shoes. At the book's climax, the girl fills a feeder in winter, and chickadees perch on her hand and hat ("You are holding/ a handful of feathers./ Small feet dance on your mittens./ .../ you feel/ a wild heart beating,/ beating quickly-like yours"). This colorful tribute should take wing with budding ornithologists and nature lovers alike. Ages 4-7. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Ryder's simply worded, brief, nonrhyming poetic text urges children to take note of the activities of wild birds around them. She reminds readers that these feathered creatures are everywhere-in the air, in the trees, and on the ground-gliding, tiptoeing, searching for food, and protecting their young. Amid the activity, 11 varieties of birds (identified only on the copyright/dedication spread) are depicted and a young girl dressed in hot pink, orange, red, purple, and blue is shown gazing through binoculars, sitting in a tree branch, peering into a nest, looking out a window, filling a feeder, making snow angels, and lying in bed dreaming of flying with her feathered friends. The brightly colored paintings are eye-catching. While the illustrations are stylized and often flat, the birds shown in the variety of outdoor scenes are detailed enough to clearly represent their species. Girl, birds, trees, and buildings are outlined in black to make them stand out. An additional title for most collections, this well-designed book may delight youngsters if an adult makes the effort to reinforce its simple lessons about observing nature.-Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
The activities of wild birds near a girl's home are described from spring through winter (e.g., Sometimes they stay / and share this yard, / this tree with you). While not meant as a guide book, some of the birds appearing in the generally realistic illustrations are identified on a double-page spread preceding the book's lyrical but dull verse. From HORN BOOK Fall 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Ryder (Mouse Tail Moon, 2002, etc.) follows a fledgling birder as she watches and cares for birds in the wild. Ambience rather than identification is her goal, so she endeavors to catch a little bit of each bird's personality: starlings creeping about in the grass, finches fluttering as they take a bath, sparrows mobbing power lines like so many bleacher bums. An effort is made to convey some ornithological information in passing--what foods certain birds eat, which birds migrate south, which will stay for the winter--and Kwas's (A Rumpus of Rhymes, 2001, etc.) color-shot art is particularly deliberate when it comes to the birds themselves, though more stylistic when it comes to the people and architecture. The staccato prose works well enough when speaking of the birds--"Ever-so-hungry birds watch your shadow slowly stretching on the ground. They see you fill the feeder with sweet seeds, then move away"--but the same cannot be said when it tries to catch the wonder of flight, when it gets all too whiffy and fails to hold: "They flicker here and there between leaf and leaf, between earth and sky. Wild birds take the high path over your head under the clouds." Still, there is enough sustaining natural imagery here to launch more than a few young birders. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
