Bird Talk

Gr 3–5—Birds use their voices, physical features, and their movements in varied ways to express themselves to their mates, their children, others of their species, and predators endangering them. This cheerful picture-book introduction cites numerous examples from many parts of the world. Explanations are brief and bright in tone. "A Palm Cockatoo is a regular one-man hard-rock band. He whistles and bobs his head. Then he breaks off a stick to drum against a tree. The message is clear to other males, 'Stay away! This is MY tree.'" Judge adds energy, humor, and occasional elegance in her vigorous color-shaded drawings. The large gray Palm Cockatoo with its rosy cheek patches and burst of top-knot feathers is a homely, stern defender of his branch. Some pages introduce two birds while others fill a whole page. A few get the whole spread. More than half of the 28 species reside in North America. Each has been chosen to represent an aspect of communication—greetings, warnings, mating signals, or contacts between parents and their young. A concluding pictorial glossary gives the species name of each bird (not all are named when they first appear), adding a brief note on its behavior and stating its habitat and range. A quick introduction to our ever-expanding knowledge of animal communication, this is also a fun glimpse at the variety among the world's birds.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston