100 books like What the Robin Knows

Serious writing about animals going extinct and how we are all to blame doesn’t necessarily resonate with everyone. Different communication approaches are needed.

In this book, writer Douglas Adams, and Zoologist Mark Cawardine document their travels to see very rare and endangered species like the Kakapo and the blind river dolphin. Never shying away from the realities faced by these species, this book has a wonderful, engaging lightness of touch that rides above the richness and wisdom underpinning the stories being told.

I love this book, not least because it makes me realize that, despite being very much a nature lover’s book, we need more narratives about nature that can appeal to people who don’t necessarily love nature but do enjoy entertaining, amusing, witty writing.

The author went on a journey to discover all she could about the pink dolphins (the botos) of Brazil, but she soon found herself immersed in the folklore and myth of this very real animal. She learns that people who live with the botos believe the dolphins are shapeshifters who live human-like lives in an amazing underwater world—the Encante—where everything in life is better. Even so, they come out of the water as human beings to visit our world and interact with the locals. They can only be recognized by the hats they wear to cover the blowholes in the tops of their heads. I love the feeling this book gives that we are constantly walking with the enchanted.  

Without this book by Maria Mudd Ruth we may never have known about the captivating life of the Marbled Murrelet. This little seabird depends on the health of both the inland old-growth forest for its home and the distant Pacific Ocean for its livelihood. In this natural history mystery, Ruth tracks what we know and when we knew it about the Marbled Murrelet. From what she managed to uncover, we now know that if we lose the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, we will lose this avian piece of the natural puzzle. I admire Ruth’s tenacity in her deep research and brilliant telling of this little bird’s story.

Jellyfish may be lacking bones, blood, and brains, but they are full of mystery.

To me, the most compelling narrative nonfiction tells something about the author as well as their subject, becoming part memoir while explaining the research process.

I read this book as research for my nonfiction children’s book on jellyfish, but I learned so much more—about the worldwide jellyfish research community, the past and future health of our oceans, both the perils and possibilities of ever-increasing jellyfish populations, and Juli Berwald’s journey to reclaim her love of the ocean.

Discover some cutting-edge science and marvel at these simple but beautiful blobs from below.

This book taught me how to hear birds. 

We all see birds to some degree. But most people completely miss their sounds. That’s where this book comes in, as a guide to the vocalization of all the western birds (there is an eastern version, too) with transliterations, spectrograms, and curated online recordings. 

Here’s what I recommend you do to instantly enrich your life: sit outside, wait until a bird sings or calls, then look it up in this book. Read the description, look at the spectrogram, and play the recording if needed. Now you know a bird by ear. Now, whenever it calls, you will know what bird is present, just by the subtle patterns or qualities of tone that most people ignore. 

The thing I love about the subject of this book is that it is visible all around me. The great yearly drama of the nesting season is the most exciting part of watching birds. This is where the good stuff happens: song and courtship, battles over territory, the miracle of nest construction, the cuteness of babies, and the development of monogamy. 

Heinrich’s book opened my eyes to this story. He merges his deep scientific knowledge with personal observation, making that broader understanding applicable to what I can observe myself. He explores the different ways birds have of living their lives, constantly asking how we can explain those patterns not as random assemblages of behaviors but as comprehensible evolutionary strategies. He makes birds make sense.

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.

This is the best book I’ve ever read on what it feels like to be a bird. It takes the form of a novel following the migration and searches for companionship of an Eskimo curlew.

But it isn’t a kid’s novel of entirely anthropomorphized animals, complete with a full complement of human thoughts. Instead, Bodsworth gives a skillfully restrained rendition of what instincts and urges birds might really feel, carefully threading the needle between boring accounts that allow no emotions to birds and fanciful accounts that erroneously attribute all kinds of complex thoughts and calculations to them. 

The migratory and nesting instincts are tremendously powerful feelings, feelings experienced by the birds I see right in my neighborhood. Bodsworth does them justice and makes the birds characters in an enormous, epic drama.

This book is a fascinating look at ornithology through the ages, from mythology and legend to the evolution of our scientific understanding of birds today. It includes beautiful illustrations from medieval monks to early naturalists through the 20th century. Even the most casual birdwatcher will learn something fascinating from this book; I read it slowly, digesting a section at a time, and it’s one I’m sure I’ll return to again and again.

For this recommendation, I’ve chosen something different. 

Every bird nerd should know the bird basics, and Melissa Stewart’s book on feathers is the perfect place to begin. You’re sure to learn something new. I did. I had no idea that feathers came in so many different shapes and sizes. You might be surprised, too, to discover all the things feathers can do. I won’t give them all away, but some are used for warmth, and others for floating! 

Bird lovers will also appreciate the illustrations by Sarah Brannen, which resemble a naturalist’s sketchbook. They may even inspire you to create one of your own.