100 books like Fledgling

A perfectly formed, intimate epiphany of a book about birdwatching, by a non-birdwatcher. Unmoored by her father’s illness, Maclear tries to find a way of making life make sense. She experiments with calligraphy; she wrestles with writer’s block. One day she meets a birdwatching musician, who explains how the activity helps dissipate his worries and daily pressures. Intrigued, she asks if she can tag along. Reluctant at first, and almost despite herself, the author begins to find peace and unexpected beauty in the urban landscape. She discovers that simply being still triggers introspection. This is also a book about the tension between freedom and confinement – something that resonates particularly for me, as a writer with children.

Victorian women were at the forefront of Britain’s animal protection movement. We owe our compassionate reflex to their hard-fought battles against cruelty. Women founded the Battersea Dogs’ Home, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the many groups that opposed vivisection. They lobbied for better treatment of animals, both through practical action (demonstrations, gruesome shop window displays, pamphleteering) and through writing, such as Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Yet their male opponents dismissed their efforts as sentimental and hysterical. For an overview of women’s struggles under the patriarchy (eg, patronisingly menial tasks dished out by a male RSPCA council) this is a fascinating read.

‘What would happen,’ Norbury writes in her introduction to this anthology, ‘if I simply missed out the 50 percent of the population whose voices have been credited with shaping this particular cultural form?’ (ie, the ‘lone enraptured male,’ as writer Kathleen Jamie once memorably put it). The answer is a compulsively readable and constantly surprising anthology: a magpie curation of glittering treasures.

One of the many things I love about this timely book is its arrangement by alphabetical order. So you have contemporary nature blogger Nic Wilson next to Virginia Woolf, and Monica Ali rubbing shoulders with Elizabeth von Armin – and Enid Blyton next to Tessa Boase. This feels oddly apt: the writer who got me reading. Her entry illustrates Norbury’s inspired eye for what counts as ‘nature writing’: here, Philip mansplains a slow-worm to silly Dinah.

An unusually honest, rural memoir by the RSPB’s longest-serving female columnist. Chester’s writing has a lovely elasticity, dancing between wonder, introspection, and anger as she moves from the particular to the universal. I learned a lot about how Britain’s countryside is managed. I also enjoyed her more eccentric impulses, such as lying down in the snow on the edge of a field one night, just to see what might happen. She belongs to the disappearing English rural working class, and is intent on handing this baton to her three children. Chester also explores the familiar tension between wanting to write and being needed at home. The heady ecstasy of time carved out alone, in nature. The scrabble to earn a precarious living, and the insecurities of occupying a tied cottage. The idea of ‘home’ lies at the heart of this fierce, beautifully written, immersive book about one’s place within the… show more.

This is another delight that we found in our local library. The illustrations and design of Little Bird’s Day are exquisite – the background colours of the page change as the story moves through the day and at night the page is covered in stars except for the outline of a bird as it dreams about flying across the sky. The story is beautiful and the artwork by Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr is outstanding. It is no surprise that this book was nominated for several book awards in 2020. It should have won all the prizes. Another excellent Indigenous author and illustrator that I hope more people will read and share with their families.

I love Cape Cod and I was fortunate to live on the edge of the sea between 1997-2003. Skillfully written by one of America’s greatest writers of the natural habitat, it transports you to a place. It reminds me of what it felt like to live far out in Cape Cod on the North Atlantic at its furthest reach on the east coast of the United States. Living there for several years and spending time in nature with the sea, beach, dunes, and my bicycle, I learned to love its moods, wildlife, and great sense of mystery. I totally identified with this man’s extraordinary experience and how it was years ago. A wonderfully descriptive book that helps you experience with all your senses what it’s like to live next to the sea alone. 

This book is a new find for me and I loved it.

It’s about a group of ‘Hidden People’ who are trying to find their way back home. Hidden People are tiny folk who most humans can’t see but who can be seen by some children – children aware of the world of nature around them. Hidden People are guardians of the Wild World, the world of nature and animals and birds and the like.

This delightful and informative book has a strong message about protecting the world around us. I was enchanted by the story of the, sometimes scary, adventures that these tiny people experienced on their journey back home and I’m sure you will be too.

Packing a huge amount of research onto every page, Strycker, who in his 2015 big year logged a record-setting 6,042 bird species, engagingly analyzes the biology and behavior of penguins, magpies, hummingbirds, albatrosses, and more to explore how the lives of birds are simultaneously incredibly alien to and indelibly intertwined with those of humans in activities and emotions as diverse as altruism, dancing, seduction, and fear. His insights, delivered with a light touch, may well change the worldview of those who think that humans are somehow more worthy than any other animal on the planet.

In Sightings, Sam Keen lays a gentle hand on your shoulder and invites you to share in his love affair with birds. From the Indigo Bunting to the Lord God bird, he describes his various encounters, weaving bits of his own history with illuminating glimpses into the avian realm. This slim volume is beautifully illustrated with paintings by Mary Woodin and venerable quotes, reminding us that the world, viewed up close, is a sacred place designed for those with open hearts.

The Lion and the Bird is the perfect friendship book for quiet times, for easing into the day after just waking up or for calming down when it’s time to say goodnight. Adults and children alike, will be drawn into this sweet story, where the lion discovers an injured bird, nurses it back to health, then waits for it to return the next year. The combination of the gentle text with the charming illustrations makes my heart swell every time.