Curious About Birds

True to its title, satisfying a curious reader’s desire to know more about birds is exactly what this book does. The book beams with detailed depictions of colorful birds in their natural habitats. These beautiful, realistic illustrations are sure to thrill the ornithologists of tomorrow and inspire endless questions—“What is that bird eating?” and “Why are those birds a different color from each other?”—however, the combination of a more traditional illustration style with modern text bars creates a dissonance that cheapens the experience. The facts it shares are rather simple—“Most birds sing,” “Some birds live alone,” “Most birds build nests”—and are presented in a flat, academic tone. The inclusion of the name of each bird depicted is educational and likely to teach even adult readers a thing or two they don’t already know about birds. While the ending is unfortunately abrupt—“Birds . . . are important to our world”—and leaves engaged readers wishing for a little more information, for the truly ambitious and curious, it could serve as a jumping-off point for more research.