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Counting Crows…and Robins, Jays, and Chickadees

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Copyright 2019 Susan Richmond and Stephanie Coleman. Reproduced with permission from Peachtree.

Bird Count, by Susan Edwards Richmond, illustrated by Stephanie Fizer Coleman, Peachtree Publishers; $17.95, ages 4-8. October 2019.

Fall birdwatching is more challenging now that mating season is over–the bright plumage of some birds gives way to more muted tones–but scouting them out is excellent preparation for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. In Susan Edward Richmond’s first children’s book, Bird Count, Ava, whose name is Latin for “like a bird,” is tasked with recording and identifying birds for the wintertime roundup.

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Copyright 2019 Susan Richmond and Stephanie Coleman. Reproduced with permission from Peachtree.

A bird can only be counted if at least two people confirm hearing or seeing it, so Ava must pay close attention with her eyes and ears. The singsongy text flies with ease from one page to the next, while young readers can keep abreast of Ava’s bird tally in the page margins. Stephanie Coleman’s deft illustrations of mallards, mergansers, and merlins prove the adage that practice makes perfect: last year she challenged herself to paint one bird a day for 100 days. (See the entire flock here.)

A joyous introduction to birdwatching while also fostering a love of the outdoors, Bird Count will delight fledgling ornithologists as well as wise old owls.

 

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Fantastic Flowers and Where to Find Them

Fantastic Flowers, by Susan Stockdale: Peachtree Publishers, $17.99, 32 pages, ages 2-5.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like spring, and a host of new non-fiction books are popping up like a field of crocuses and daffodils. Fantastic Flowers is a charmingly playful presentation of seventeen flowers found across the globe, and Stockdale’s bubbly illustrations are a lively match for the simple, lyrical descriptions–the Mediterranean bumblbee orchid that graces the front cover looks like a pair of magenta smiling honeybees, and other flowers resemble baboons, ballerinas, and pineapples. The book gently introduces young readers to the concept of object identification and encourages close observation skills, while back matter offers further scientific explanation about plants and pollinators.

Fantastic Flowers offers cheerful anticpiation for the forthcoming season. 

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Text and art copyright 2017 Susan Stockdale. Reproduced with permission from Peachtree Publishers. 

 

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(Children’s) BookNotes, April 13, 2016

Beverly Cleary turns 100, and Scholastic announces a poetry contest.

Publisher’s Weekly interviewed beloved children’s book author Beverly Cleary, who turned 100 on April 12.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Scholastic and
U.S.A. Gold®

Pencils company announces a student poetry contest for public school children in grades 1-6. Read the details here. (Hurry! The contest ends April 29.)

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Odes to Odd Creatures

“A Strange Place to Call Home: The World’s Most Dangerous Habitats & The Animals That Call Them Home,” by Marilyn Singer, illustrations by Ed Young; Chronicle Books, $16.99, 44 pages, ages 6-10. 

Mudskippers, snow monkeys and limpets are three of the fourteen remarkable animals profiled in this poetry collection by award-winning author Marilyn Singer. This book would be an exciting introduction to poetry for the young reader who may not yet  understand that poems can take many forms. A compact lexicon explains the types of poetry found in the book, and which poems are examples of them, such as free verse, sonnet, and villanelle. “Well-Oiled,” for instance, is a cinquain homage to insects born in petroleum.  (Thousands/of them are born/in carrion, water, /or soil. But not this crew. /They hatch/in oil.)  A second glossary details the animals described in verse. Collages of land and seascapes by the unstoppable Ed Young (“Nighttime Ninja;” see our review here) capture perfectly the essence of these dangerous dwellings.