Here are 100 books that The Beak Book fans have personally recommended if you like
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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 didnât 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).
This brief, clever picture book really packs a punch! Readers follow two families building a house for their expected little ones. Each action is presented with one simple word. The human uses a construction crane to GRAB lumber, while on the opposite page, a Sandhill Crane uses its beak to GRAB a stick for the nest. They GLIDE, STACK, PICK, SWAY, and HONK their way through the warm watercolor illustrations until they settle on one word to summarize their accomplishmentâŚHOME.
A sandhill crane lifts a stick. A construction crane lifts a log. The two cranes grab, stretch, and stack, working through bad weather and difficult obstacles toward their end goal: building a home for a new family. Told in a simple sequence of verbs, this colorful picture book demonstrates how the mechanical world mirrors the natural world.
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 didnât 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. Itâs jam-packed with every activity bird-loving littles could hope forâgames, 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,âŚ
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 didnât 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).
I adore books that introduce a subject through the magic of poetry. Rhyme, rhythm, meter, and brevity are all appealing factors that keep a young audience engaged. In Snow Birds, the author and illustrator take us on a snowy poetic journey through mountains, forests, and backyards to give us a glimpse of the birds that donât migrate but stay and brave the harsh climate of wintertime. This book fits the bill for all bird-loving, word-loving kids and adults alike.
Discover birds who survive winter against all odds in this poetic, gorgeously illustrated picture book
Snowflakes whirling, snow-flocks swirling, streaks of white twirl through the night . . .
You've heard of birds who migrate to warmer climates in the wintertime-but what about those who persevere through snowy weather and freezing temperatures? With elegant verse and striking illustrations, Snow Birds salutes the brave and resourceful birds who adapt to survive the coldest months.
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 didnât 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).
It's never too early to introduce children to the world of birds! This colorful board book with simple information about our feathered friends is a perfect choice. "Peck Peck Peck, the noisy woodpecker is looking for food inside a tree trunk."âcurious babies and toddlers will learn animal names, behaviors, and habitats in this sturdy take-along book that is just the right size for little hands!
Young children love watching birds. Now hereâs a Hello, World! board book that teaches toddlers all about our feathered friendsâwith colors, shapes, sizes, and super-simple facts.
Hello, World! is a series designed to introduce first nonfiction concepts to babies and toddlers. Told in clear and easy terms (âPeck, peck, peck! This noisy woodpecker is looking for food inside a tree trunkâ) and featuring bright, cheerful illustrations, Hello, World! makes learning fun for young children. And each sturdy page offers helpful prompts for engaging with your child. Itâs a perfect way to bring science and nature into the busy world ofâŚ
Iâm the author of more than 25 award-winning books for children, including Mama Built a Little Nest, illustrated by Steve Jenkins, and I Love Birds! 52 Ways to Wonder, Wander and Explore Birds with Kids, illustrated by Alexander Vidal. When not writing, I help rehabilitate injured and orphaned songbirds, I study bird behavior, and I further my knowledge about birds through books and scholarly journals. Birds offer a constant source of discovery and wonder. I hope the books Iâve recommended offer a source of discovery and wonder for your young readers, too!
Not only is this book stunning â sculpted paper illustrations that appear 3D â it offers a flock-full of information about birds and the many types of beaks one may find on them. A beak isnât just a beak, after all. With over 10,000 bird species in the world, itâs not surprising to learn that bird beaks come in many shapes and sizes, each with a specific purpose to a birdâs habitat necessary for survival in this big, wide world. Although geared for young readers, this book will inspire readers of all ages to take notice of bird beaks. Anytime we can encourage young readers to engage with nature and the world around them, thatâs a good thing, donât you think?
1
author picked
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why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
Young naturalists explore a variety of birds, their habitats, and how their beaks help them build, eat, and survive. From the twisted beak of a crossbill to the color changing bill of a seagull, readers will learn fun facts about how beaks are designed and used as tools by birds of all shapes and sizes. Bright, bold cut-paper illustrations create amazingly realistic tableaus of birds in their natural environments with their beaks in action. Back matter includes a comprehensive quiz, a bibliography, and a list of related websites.
While developing Nest, I lived in the Presidio National Park. A plum tree grew right outside the kitchen window and I had a year-round view of the robins living there. Those backyard birds were magical - from their flying and singing to their feathers and eggs. Spending hours watching them while cooking inspired me to share their world with my world. I have a degree in art history from Princeton and a law degree from Stanford. I worked as a textile designer in New York before going out on my own as an author and artist. Currently, I share a studio with my architect-husband and I draw every day.
I recommend this book because of my love of Steve Jenkinsâs illustrations. I think he is one of the great illustrators of animals for kids' books, and his work is a perfect blend of accuracy and abstraction. In this book, his illustrations are paired with Jennifer Wardâs charming text thatâs well suited to read aloud to the youngest children.
A delightful exploration of the incredibly variety of nests birds build for their babies, illustrated by a Caldecott Honoree.
Mama built a little nest inside a sturdy trunk. She used her beak to tap-tap-tap the perfect place to bunk.
There are so many different kinds of birds-and those birds build so many different kinds of nests to keep their babies cozy. With playful, bouncy rhyme, Jennifer Ward explores nests large and small, silky and cottony, muddy and twiggy-and all the birds that call them home!
4.5 billion years ago, Earth was forming - but nothing could have survived thereâŚ
From Cells to Ourselves is the incredible story of how life on earth started and how it gradually evolved from the first simple cells to the abundance of life around us today. Walk with dinosaurs, analyseâŚ
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 BackâŚ
Iâve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing somethingâs name? I later discovered that all these questions are very oldâthe idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didnât know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a nameâs meaning like a loose thread.
This book delighted me because itâs packed with the backstories behind the names of birdsâand those stories feature surprising historical anecdotes, quirky characters, and more. Did I say âquirkyâ? The namesake for Leachâs storm petrel was so far past âquirkyâ that you canât even see it in the rear-view mirror.
I enjoyed thinking about early naturalists trying to fit strange birds from strange lands into what was familiar from home (hence, North American and Australian ârobins.â). I learned about bird names that are onomatopoetic (ârookâ), based on folklore (âgoatsuckerâ), unexpectedly descriptive (âswallowâ), and, of course, eponymous (the titular âMrs. Moreauâs warbler.â). The writing is graceful, and the book design is lovely. What a treat!
Swallow and starling, puffin and peregrine, blue tit and blackcap. We use these names so often that few of us ever pause to wonder about their origins. What do they mean? Where did they come from? And who created them?
The words we use to name birds are some of the most lyrical and evocative in the English language. They also tell incredible stories: of epic expeditions, fierce battles between rival ornithologists, momentous historical events and touching romantic gestures.
Through fascinating encounters with birds, and the rich cast of characters who came up with their names, in Mrs Moreau's WarblerâŚ
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. Weâve been writing about birds ever since, on our website, FlyingLessons.US: What weâre learning from the birds,â and now with a book about the extraordinary work across the hemisphere to save birds. Thereâs a storehouse of books, articles and guides on birdwatching, but very little on whatâs 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 â 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 â leading to disease, death, and enormous health costs. By the time you finish this book, youâll be ready to do whatever it takes to help stop the steadyâŚ
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 firstâŚ
Virginia Wouldn't Slow Down!
by
Carrie A. Pearson,
A delightful and distinctive picture book biography about Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented the standard, eponymous test for evaluating newborn health used worldwide thousands of times every day.
You might know about the Apgar Score. But do you know the brilliant, pioneering woman who invented it? Born at the turnâŚ
When I was a doctoral student in historical musicology, I went to Paris to study postwar government budgets for music, but it was really boring. So I started hanging out listening to Parisian songbirds instead. The more I learned about birdsong, the more I realized it raised some really big questions, like why biologists and musicians have completely different standards of evidence. Those questions led me to write my book, which is about what it means to sing if youâre not considered fully human, and most of my work today is about how thinking about animals can help us understand what we value in those who are different.
Câmon, doesnât everybody need a book by a guy who explains that the Black-Billed Cuckoo is finally, finally a bird âwho appreciates measured silence such as that which characterizes the opening bars of Beethovenâs Fifth Symphonyâ?
This amazing, idiosyncratic, and beautiful book from 1904 has got pages of gorgeous colored illustrations of birds, musical scores that are a weird hybrid of actual birdsong and random additions the author thinks will âmake clearâ a birdâs connections to human music, and heartfelt statements like the one above extolling the musical abilities of various American birds.
True, this is not the book to address issues of gender, race, and power in the sensitive and thoughtful ways that Butler and Haraway do. But you wonât care, because you will be having so much fun reading about the Hermit Thrushâs deep connection to the Moonlight Sonata.
In this beautifully written and well-illustrated guide to birds' songs from 1904, Mathews describes 127 bird species, mostly of Eastern United States, and their songs. This fieldbook contains descriptions of the physical characteristics and habits of each, as well as detailed comments on their songs and calls. He includes musical scores of at least two songs for each species.