You’ve never read a bird book like this one, written and illustrated in a spirit of determined awareness, augmenting facts with spirited play ... The Book of Birds is, like poetry, a form of memory, recovery and ritualizing delight ... The book educates without dullness.
Another beautiful, eminently giftable, clarion call to pay attention to the wonders of the natural world ... The Book of Birds is no mere catalog of endangered species ... Full-throated prose poems flag distinguishing habitats, habits, and character traits that make the birds come alive in a way that more traditional field guides do not ... I had never before read a field guide from cover to cover, but after marveling at the wonders in The Book of Birds, I can well understand the authors’ profound admiration for their subjects.
The Book of Birds delivers a stark warning in its introduction about the 'great thinning of the skies … Dawns and springs are quieter; the air emptier. An ancient avian orchestra is falling silent' ... Each entry is a prose poem aimed at evoking the spirit and the unique qualities of each bird, among them the kingfisher, nightingale, nightjar, song thrush, tern, tawny owl and puffin ... Terrific.
