Here are 100 books that My Beautiful Birds fans have personally recommended if you like
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After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
I immediately loved the structure of this nonfiction book. Each page poses an intriguing question that ignited my imagination, like the titular “What If Soldiers Fought With Pillows?” followed by a true life–interesting–story of legendary people from around the world who addressed the problem.
Each well-chosen question and answer inspired me to believe that changing the world is possible. I also admire how Camlot chooses a diverse range of terrific examples, from heroic (a WW Two fighter pilot) to funny (Clowns Without Borders) and artistic (Picasso) to video-gaming (1979 Revolution: Black Friday).
What if the impossible were actually possible? What if we turned our dreams into action? What if our imagination could help solve real-world crises, like war, famine, and human rights violations?
Through a series of seemingly whimsical questions, this middle-grade nonfiction book introduces readers to people and organizations that are subverting violence, war, and totalitarian power. What if soldiers refused to carry weapons? What if fighter pilots dropped seeds instead of bombs? What if music could be a creative force for democracy? None of these ideas are impossible―in fact, they are all true historical examples of ideas that have been…
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
This author-illustrator has a gift for creating a high-concept, wordless story that young children can follow and enjoy in bold, simple images. I love how Otoshi chooses physical play to show the development and resolution of "conflict" at a child’s level. Not so easy to do!
The story begins with two boys separately drawing lines. When they bump into each other, they don’t turn angry. They play together. What fun when the lines come to life and become one long rope!
Then, one boy gets tangled and falls, and the other laughs at him. Anger builds, and the rope magically morphs into a bad, ugly space between them that grows until one boy starts to colour on the space. The other joins him. They laugh at how messy they look before running down the wonderful road they just created.
Draw the Line is a powerful picture book about forgiveness from Kathryn Otoshi, author of the bestselling book One.
When two boys draw their own lines and realize they can connect them together-magic happens!
But a misstep causes their lines to get crossed.
Push! Pull! Tug! Yank! Soon their line unravels into an angry tug-of-war.
With a growing rift between them, will the boys ever find a way to come together again?
Acclaimed author/illustrator Kathryn Otoshi uses black and white illustrations with thoughtful splashes of color to create a powerful, multi-layered statement about friendship, boundaries, and healing after conflict.
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
I love the hilarious, creative approach of this book.
In a conflict like war, one side usually believes something about the other side that is inaccurate for one reason or another. In this story, we don’t know why the little person on the left side believes the wall in the middle protects him from dangerous creatures on the right side. The wall is so tall he can’t see them. But he also doesn’t see the danger behind him on his side.
The ogre on the right side, whom he believes will eat him, actually saves him from danger and plucks him to safety. In the end, we love that he will now explore and enjoy playing with the creatures on the right side.
Sunday Times Culture Magazine Book of the Week;There's a wall in the middle of the book, and our hero-a young knight-is sure that the wall protects his side of the book from the dangers of the other side-like an angry tiger and giant rhino, and worst of all, an ogre who would gobble him up in a second! But our knight doesn't seem to notice the crocodile and growing sea of water that are emerging on his side. When he's almost over his head and calling for help, who will come to his rescue? An individual who isn't as dangerous…
Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.
After high school, I traveled, exploring cultures beyond North America. I worked on kibbutzim in Israel for nearly two years. During the Yom Kippur War, exploding bombs drove us into underground shelters until the ceasefire. That experience made me consider the impact of war in new ways. Decades later, I wrote about the issue of "conflict" in my country: the Acadian deportation and World War Two. As a school librarian meeting Palestinian families in 2002, I decided to research and visit families in the West Bank through Christian Peacemaker Teams for my novel The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. A story children told me there inspired my picture book What the Kite Saw.
This book is written for 10+ readers and is about two soldiers holding guns.
I enjoyed the obvious visual absurdity of two adults hiding in deep holes on opposing pages. As the story progresses, it becomes obvious they’ve been taught by a manual to believe that the other side is a monster, an enemy to be killed. Near the end, when both soldiers are fed up with the whole situation, they venture out of their holes only to discover that the other man is a human being with a family and home just like them! The other man was also taught by a manual to believe a story about someone they’d never met.
In the funny and eminently sensible ending, each of them throws a bottle containing a message into the other’s hole: "Let’s end this war."
In this moving picture book, award-winning collaborators Davide Cali and Serge Bloch present a fable for our time about two lonely soldiers facing each other across a barren battlefield. What each discovers, as the story unfolds, is that the enemy is not a faceless beast, but rather a real person with family, friends, and dreams.
I’m a writer, illustrator, and champion of children’s books, with approximately 90 titles published over the last 25 years. I use this experience to guide parents to quality picture books via my blog, Stories Worth Sharing, which aims to help parents nurture and connect with their kids through stories. I can trace this passion back to my childhood. Snuggled in my father’s arms, we’d explore fantastic places together – like One Hundred Acre Wood, Busy Town, and Zuckerman’s barn. Picture books are foundational in developing young minds. These selected titles put your child in someone else’s shoes and teach them to empathise with others.
Sadly, this powerful story feels more relevant than ever. Inspired by the Syrian refugee
crisis, it confronts the reality of war head-on, putting the reader in the shoes of a little girl whose everyday routine is shattered. Because of the subject matter, this may be unsuitable for very young or sensitive kids – but it proves that picture books can be a potent way of speaking to older kids, too.
The unsophisticated language and naive illustrations provide children easy access to
important discussions surrounding conflict and misplaced children. Poignant, thought-provoking, and ultimately uplifting, this story reminds us of the reality of war and that our children provide hope for a peaceful future.
A powerful and necessary picture book - the journey of a child forced to become a refugee when war destroys everything she has ever known.
Imagine if, on an ordinary day, war came. Imagine it turned your town to rubble. Imagine going on a long and difficult journey - all alone. Imagine finding no welcome at the end of it. Then imagine a child who gives you something small but very, very precious...
When the government refused to allow 3000 child refugees to enter this country in 2016, Nicola Davies was so angry she wrote a poem. It started a…
My father was a life-long falconer. When I was a child, spending time with my father meant spending time with a menagerie of winged friends like goshawks, peregrine falcons, parrots, owls, and even vultures. I didn’t know it back then, but as I went hawking with my dad and helped him care for his beautiful birds, I was gathering a nest of passion and ideas for the writer and poet I would become. Today, I enjoy sharing my love of birds, nature, and books with children (and children at heart).
Oh, how I wish I had this book when I was a child! Each brightly illustrated page is rich with close-up photos of various birds to look for, field guides, and tips to follow. It’s jam-packed with every activity bird-loving littles could hope for—games, crafts, a birding log for sightings, sticker badges, and a real magnifying glass! Bird Watch is an excellent book for school field trips, family nature adventures, and the perfect gift for young explorers.
The third book in the Backpack Explorer series from the Editors of Storey Publishing invites budding naturalists to head outside for a walk - in the woods, a park, or right in their backyard - to spot feathered friends. Backpack Explorer: Bird Watch leads kids aged 4 and up through the basics of birding, from identifying common birds to learning about habitat and migration and listening for bird songs. The pages are packed with prompts and activities, including 12 interactive field guides (for common birds, nests, eggs, tracks, and more), sensory scavenger hunts, activities such as building a bird nest,…
A decade ago, we were living in Washington, D.C., wrapped up as journalists in the daily news cycle. We began camping to get out of the city and quickly became fascinated with birds. We’ve been writing about birds ever since, on our website, FlyingLessons.US: What we’re learning from the birds,” and now with a book about the extraordinary work across the hemisphere to save birds. There’s a storehouse of books, articles and guides on birdwatching, but very little on what’s happening to bird populations overall. We believe the story of birds is one of the best ways to open a window on the environmental issues that are among the pivotal topics of our time.
This is not an easy read, built on a deep academic tour of the evidence of how birds contribute to this world. But it makes up for the tough sledding by providing huge doses of detail that make the case for why we cannot let birds continue to wither away.
Birds consume, for instance, 400 to 500 tons of insects each year across the earth. They contribute to billions of dollars in value when you add up all the ways we rely on their pollinating, seed dispersal, garbage collection – not to mention the outdoor activities they provide people.
When bird species are pulled out of the equation, as vultures were in India for a time, the results can be catastrophic – leading to disease, death, and enormous health costs. By the time you finish this book, you’ll be ready to do whatever it takes to help stop the steady…
For over one hundred years, ornithologists and amateur birders have jointly campaigned for the conservation of bird species, documenting not only birds' beauty and extraordinary diversity, but also their importance to ecosystems worldwide. But while these avian enthusiasts have noted that birds eat fruit, carrion, and pests; spread seed and fertilizer; and pollinate plants, among other services, they have rarely asked what birds are worth in economic terms. In Why Birds Matter, an international collection of ornithologists, botanists, ecologists, conservation biologists, and environmental economists seeks to quantify avian ecosystem services the myriad benefits that birds provide to humans. The first…
I’m an Australian zoologist, botanist, and best-selling prize-winning writer. An earlier book of mine, Feral Future, inspired the formation of the Invasive Species Council, an Australian conservation lobby group. My Where Song Began, was a best-seller that became the first nature book to win the Australian Book Industry Award for best General Non Fiction. It was republished in the US. I have co-edited Wildlife Australia magazine and written for many magazines and newspapers, including nature columns as well as features. As a teenager I discovered new lizard species, one of which was named after me.
For great feats in nature the epic migrations of millions of wading birds are difficult to beat. Immense stamina is needed for days of non-stop flight, plus sophisticated navigational skills – which remain improperly understood – to guide birds by day and night and through storms that blow them off course.
Andrew Darby begins on a beach in South Australia where two grey plovers are fitted with radio transmitters shortly before their migrations north. He follows their travels, flying after they do to Broome in north-western Australia, then to China to see the mudflats they refuel on, then to their breeding habitat inside the Arctic Circle, then back again to northern Australia.
Important to his story are the dedicated and sometimes obsessive people Darby meets in each location, many of them unpaid, who use innovative technology and intellect to work out where, exactly, the birds go on their travels and…
As the sun lowered and turned Gulf St Vincent fiery, they each called a high-pitched 'peeooowiii!', flashed their black wing-pits, spread their tail skirts and took flight.
Andrew Darby follows the odysseys of two Grey Plovers, little-known migratory shorebirds, as they take previously uncharted ultramarathon flights from the southern coast of Australia to Arctic breeding grounds. On these extraordinary flights they chance predators, typhoon weather and exhaustion before they can breed, and maybe return to familiar southern feeding grounds. But the greatest threat to these, and other long-distance migrants on the flyway, is China's dragon economy, engulfing their vital Yellow…
Children feel all their emotions, but I learned to suppress many emotions to avoidcriticism. The youngest, I learned to not trust my intuition. I was taught that the mind wasthe path to success. In my chosen medical profession, physicians use intellect to healbodies. The interconnection of thoughts, emotions, energy as well as interconnectionsbetween people and the environment are ignored.This separation from all of me was sapping me of the joy of living a full life.During my self healing integration journey: I uncovered limiting beliefs, reconnected withmy heart, and dove deep into the source of my pleasure. Bringing this awareness to lightshould be healing.
Dr. Seuss is a master author. This book reminds readers that all children desire to be seen,heard and develop deep connections and love.
Children are blind to differences: it is adults whoare much more keenly aware of our differences and often separate us from love. In this book,we appreciate both sameness and differences.
The classic illustrated children's book, ideal for reluctant readers and children just beginning to read on their own.
This beautifully illustrated story of a baby bird's journey to find his mother is a timeless classic from beloved author P.D.Eastman.
Reluctant readers and children who have just started to read on their own will love joining the baby bird on his quest as he asks everyone (from a kitten to a cow) and everything (from a plane to a tugboat) that he meets, 'Are You My Mother?'
Beginner Books are designed to encourage even 'non-reading' children to read. This Green Back…
I teach people how to enjoy birds. I’ve led bird walks, taught seminars, co-owned a wild bird feeding shop, and written two books and well over a hundred newspaper columns on birds. Over the years, I’ve conveyed a fair heap of information about birds because accurate knowledge and biological understanding are valuable tools for fostering appreciation. But I consider making birds relevant and vivid in our everyday lives to be far more important than simply accumulating facts. These are a few books that get to the heart of what I am most excited about: changing how we see and hear birds and thereby enriching our experience of every single day.
Reading Dawson was what first inspired me to really look at birds. I was attending UC Berkeley as a literature student and spent rainy mornings nestled into the big library armchairs. There, I found Dawson’s 1923 Birds of California, a monumental three-volume collection of extended, highly personal, and idiosyncratic essays on all the birds of the state. I was hooked.
What Dawson does differently than most moderns is express personal bias, an essential ingredient in enthusiasm. He told me which birds are the most beautiful (violet-green swallows), which are the most sublime singers (hermit thrushes), and which are dull and boring but somehow very endearing (California towhees). He taught me a lot about birds, but even more, he taught me to be excited by them.
A literary feast for any bird lover, this selection of writings from William Leon Dawson's legendary book The Birds of California is an illumination and a joy. From predators to songsters, birds swooping over ocean cliffs, and birds nesting in desert cacti, Dawson paints portraits that are elegant, idiosyncratic, humorous, and often emotionally moving.
The Birds of California was an early and influential guide to the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. The original three-volume 1923 edition is today a rare and expensive find. With the publication of Dawson's Avian Kingdom, the core of Dawson's great…
