Using child-friendly similes, Feathers shows that there is both beauty and purpose in nature and that, although we do not fly, we have many things in common with birds, such as the need to be safe, attractive, industrious, communicative, and well-fed. The simple, large text is suitable for reading to very young children, while the inset boxes contain more details for school-aged kids. The scrapbook-style watercolor illustrations show each feather at life size, and provide a nice jumping-off point for individual projects. Science, art, and prose work together to make this the perfect book to share with budding young artists, painters, naturalists, and scientists, and it will be appreciated by parents, teachers, and kids.
"Life's most persistent question is: What are you doing for others?" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.And, oh yeah, it's Nonfiction Monday! Check it out.
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The world’s quite a big place, you know. But it’s not that big, when you consider how much there is to squeeze into it.After a cursory introduction to extinction, he offers the varying reasons for why creatures have become extinct – poaching, invasive non-native species, over-hunting, chemical poisoning. Each time, he hints that problems are not so easily solved. Take the tiger for example,
After all, it’s home not just to billions of people, but to the most amazing number of other kinds of living things, too. And we’re all jostling for space.
…they’re big, they need a lot of space. But the countries where they live, like India and Indonesia, have huge numbers of people in them too, all trying to make a living and needing to be fed. …Jenkins looks at failures (the Dodo, the Great Auk and others), successes (the Buffalo, the White Rhinoceros, the Kakapos, and more) and other works in progress. In each case, he presents the conundrum of competing interests or unintended consequences in a manner easily understood by young readers. Text size, too, is inviting to younger readers – smaller text is punctuated by sections of very large font print.
So if you were a poor farmer trying to make a living with a couple of cows and a few goats, you might not be too happy if you found there was a hungry tiger living nearby. And if you knew that someone might pay you more for a tiger skin and some bones than you earn in three whole months working in the fields, then you might find it very tempting to set a trap or two, even if you knew it was against the law.
Now that the Cybils judging is completed, I can finally release this review that I wrote last month. Thunder Birds was a finalist in the 2011 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book category.Prey animals are taken suddenly and without warning in the midst of whatever they happen to be doing. Only in bright moonlight might an owl’s intended victim sense what is coming, when it sees the hunter’s large shadow moving across the ground.How thrilling to imagine such a close encounter with a bird that many have never actually seen in the wild.
At night in the forest, while I was taking flash photos of owls, one of the big birds swooped down toward me from behind, lightly brushing my head with its wings. I felt it and then I saw it, but I never heard it coming.
At this time of year, I usually have plenty of nonfiction titles to choose from for my "best of" lists. This year, however, my nonfiction list comes with an asterisk.
* I'm looking forward to serving as a 2nd round judge in the 2011 Cybils Non-Fiction Picture Books category, and while I've read many of the nominated books, I haven't read them all, and won't receive the "shortlist" until next month. My personal reading list to date did not mirror the Cybils nominees and there is a possibility that I may have missed a great nonfiction title. When the shortlist comes out, I will certainly give each book careful consideration. 
As we read disturbing news accounts of dying manatees , environmental disasters caused by toxic waste, and ocean pollution on the scale of ...
