See What You Can See

Recently cold weather, more like early October, has been visiting northern Michigan.  It's allowed windows to be open and fresh air to circulate through the house.  Last evening, rather than the splashing of Black-Capped Chickadees and American Goldfinches in the bird baths, outside the front picture window I heard a high-pitched chittering.  Two hummingbirds were having a "discussion" about territory.

This was a gentle reminder for me to appreciate my feathered friends; all too soon many will be heading south.  Annette LeBlanc Cate has written and illustrated Look Up!: Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard (Candlewick Press) to offer younger or beginner bird-watchers hints on how to enjoy it best.  She reminds readers to take the time to notice what's right in front of our eyes.

Cate's passion for her subject in word and illustration spills out to the jacket, cover and endpapers.  The chirping chatter of birds, comic to the core, is shown on the matching jacket and cover in speech bubbles as a major attention grabber.  Front endpapers broken into panels give advice on What NOT to bring when you watch birds!, What Do You Need to Watch Birds?, And then there's stuff for drawing and taking notes..., and here are some other useful things!, and Bird-Watching Do's...and Don'ts! Appropriate comments from a roadrunner, a buzzard, a seagull and a hummingbird (to name a few) are scattered about the title page and verso.

Buzzard: I wouldn't be caught dead in a backyard. Unless there was dead stuff of course.

Every turn of page is stuffed with information from Cate in the text as well as the funny banter from her avian companions and human characters, including the author's comments about assistance from veteran birder, Jim Baron, and the table of contents.  Her upbeat, four page introduction is sure to entice readers to commit to the book in its entirety if they have not already done so.  Her final four thoughts, sentences, convey truths that will strike a common chord.

Chapter headings read: A Great Place to Start, A Rainbow of Color, Shapes Are Clues, What Are They Up To?, Note the Fine Details, Feathers 'n' Such, Listen Closely, Time for a Field Guide!, The Power of Observation, Where Birds Are At: Habitat, Home in the Range, To You It's Vacation; to Us It's Migration!, and Off You Go to Classification Class!  Snippets (paragraphs, sentences or phrases) of information, detailed but not too detailed, just right, are relayed in a conversational manner within each distinct section.  Asides shown in the speech bubbles continue as rebuttals or reinforcement to the narrative.  Narrow textual extras placed at the bottom of the pages, Wing tip, Look Closely, Foot note and Be a birdbrain add a final layer to the thematic text.

We learn right outside our window or doorway birds are walking, talking and flying.  We learn about the color scheme given to each as well as the tiniest of details; a means for identification.  We learn that specific shapes of bodies, heads, silhouettes in flight, feet and bills help to put birds in certain categories.

Behavior observed on a daily basis helps us to notice differences in a single bird and the presence of others.  Our observations can also place a particular bird in a particular habitat.  Feather color, density and shape can help determine a bird's age.  Terms such as plumage, field markings, migration, range and classification will make their way into the reader's vocabulary.

Most importantly Cate asks us to be silent; listening to the birdsong.  What might each bird be trying to convey?  The same bird can sound differently according to need.

Using panels again on the closing endpapers, readers see such heading as Some Thoughts about Bird Drawing, and Some last tips for you. In drawing Annette LeBlanc Cate asks readers to first focus on shape and practice, practice, and practice some more.  Everywhere we are, birds are.  Look, listen, and get out your sketchbook.


Two words pop into my mind when I think of this book, information and humor.  Factual presentation in the body of the book and in the extra captions is worded specifically for a novice to bird-watching.  It is countered with the spot-on statements liberally loaded with fun made by the gathered birds.  Here is a sample.

Some birds sport fanciful hairdos and cool little hats (field guides call 'em crests). Some crests are small and secret, like those of the Orange-crowned Warbler and Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and only shown when the bird is feeling aggressive.
One bird to another: We're like the Incredible Hulks of the avian world.
Reply: Yeah! You see the crests up, you gonna get messed up!


All of the illustrations rendered in watercolor and ink are as light and airy as birds in flight.  Reminiscent of sketchbooks themselves, they invite exploration on and off the page.  It's as if  Annette LeBlanc Cate has shared her personal observations with her readers, presenting us with pages from her own books.  No two pages are alike; readers are met with a visual potpourri, a splendid representation in layout and perspective.


To date Look Up!: Bird Watching in Your Own Backyard written and illustrated by Annette LeBlanc Cate has earned four starred reviews, The Horn Book, Kirkus, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.  It has earned a Parents' Choice Gold Award for Non-Fiction Spring 2013. I have had it in my hand at my favorite indie bookstore, McLean & Eakin in Petoskey, several times.  But it was a conversation on Twitter between two members of my PLN, Katherine Sokolowski and Jen Vincent (who reviewed it here) and myself that made me realize I had to read this book now.  It is a must read folks for any age!

Here is an interview with Annette LeBlanc Cate at Prairie Birder about this title that is completely fascinating, part one and part two.  Here is a link to the publisher website to take a look at two of the book's pages.  Not only is Annette LeBlanc Cate passionate about birds but this video clearly states her commitment to children's picture books.

A Winged Wonder

Recently, over the course of many days I've been on a journey from the bottom of the world to the top and back.  Places with names like Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, Lagoa do Peixe National Park, Brazil, Delaware Bay, United States, Southampton Island, Canada, Mingan Archipelago, Quebec and Maranhao, Brazil, have been some of the stops on my itinerary.  For part of the trip I've gone nearly five thousand miles without rest, food or water in all kinds of weather.  And...I've done this all from the comfort of my own home.

When reading Moonbird: A Year On The Wind With The Great Survivor B95 (Farrar Straus Giroux) written by Phillip Hoose I became, for more than 120 pages, intimately involved in a world within the world at large.  One particular bird, a red knot, who uses those geographical points as stepping-stones in his yearly voyage completely captivated my attention, as beat by beat of heart and wing I've been with him.  Rarely has filling my book gap challenge been so emotionally moving.

Meet B95, one of the world's premier athletes.  Weighing a mere four ounces, he's flown more than 325,000 miles in his life---the distance to the moon and nearly half way back.

On February 20, 1995 a team of scientists working in Argentina banded about 850 red knots.  Six years later one of them, the only survivor identified to date by black bands, was captured again.  He was given another band, a tiny orange flag, bearing B95.  When I turned to page 22 and read the account of his capture again in 2007, even with my limited knowledge, I found myself completely attached to this miracle of bone, muscle and feathers.

In the subsequent seven chapters (as in the first one) each are started with a relevant quote, followed by meticulously detailed but compelling documentation of all the stops along B95's flight for a given year.  We are privy to his physical changes, his flight patterns, the challenges faced in his diminishing food supplies, and how he protects himself from potential enemies. We follow he and his companions to their Arctic destination, the breeding grounds where growth and habitats of these astonishing winged wonders are related to us.

Between each chapter, which additionally informs us of the drastic decline in red knot population and possible causes, the precarious numbers of horseshoe crabs whose eggs B95 needs to survive, how to band birds and note statistics with care and caution, the explanation of a bellwether site (the first indicator of trends), geolocators and the long flight back to the south, readers are introduced to notable persons who have dedicated their lives to red knots.  We meet Clive Minton, Patricia Gonzalez, Brian Harrington, Amanda Dey, Guy Morrison and Ken Ross, and young Mike Hudson.


Phillip Hoose's writing style is informative, passionate and filled with personal details.  His descriptions of place and time bring us to those exact moments.  He endeavors and succeeds in bringing understanding of his subject to his reading audience.  Here are a few excerpts from this title:

But there was more to it than that. "He was alive," remembers Gonzalez, her voice catching in the telling.  "Still alive."...The bird remained calm in Gonzalez's grasp, even though her hands were trembling as she worked.  "I kept talking to him," she remembers.  "I kept saying, 'Forgive me, please, I won't hurt you.  I will release you soon.'  The heat of his tiny body was warming my hands and his heart was beating so fast.  As I was working, I kept wondering, 'How can such a fragile thing be so powerful?' "

Tonight, as the wind rises, B95 stands on one leg in the shallow lagoon, surrounded closely by his flock mates.  He tucks his bill under a wing, but he doesn't drop his guard.  B95 sleeps with one eye open.  So do the others.  A roosting flock of knots is like a single organism equipped with hundreds of eyes and ears.

If B95's birth year was typical, his parents had little to eat during their first few days in northern Canada.  Deep snow still banked against cobblestone ridges and blanketed much of the land, though bare patches of earth appeared and widened under the melting heat of the sun that hung low in the sky almost all day long.


Stunning full color photographs (most with explanatory phrases), captioned maps, added framed, featured topics, and diagrams are prevalent throughout this volume.  An extensive appendix, source notes (chapter by chapter), bibliography (books, articles, scientific papers, Internet and multimedia resources), acknowledgments, picture credits and an index are included in the back.  A list of Hoose's previous books and contents precede his narrative.


As evidenced by its numerous awards (The Robert F. Siebert Informational Book Medal Honor 2013) this year (follow the link to Phillip Hoose's website embedded in his name above) Moonbird: A Year On The Wind With The Great Survivor B95 is a stunning work of nonfiction.  All readers will become acutely aware of the important role each specie plays in the workings of our ecosystem.  We need them and they need us to be stewards of this planet.

Please go to Phillip Hoose's website to read and listen to many resources relative to this work.