The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham
| The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: It's the sort of book which children have to plead with the adults to let them have a look at (as was its predecessor). Everything about it is superb. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 26 | Date: February 2016 |
| Publisher: Fine Feather Press | |
| ISBN: 978-1908489289 | |
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Take a well-put-together board book (don't worry about it being a board book - no one is going to say that they’re a bit too old for a board book once they see it), add exquisite pictures of a dozen birds - one on each double-page spread - and then fill in the details. You'll need the name of the bird in English and Latin and a description of the bird in words which a child can understand but which won't patronise an adult. Then you'll need details of where the bird is found, what it eats, where it nests, how many eggs it lays, how the male and female adults differ and their size. Then you need a 'Did you know?' fact and this needs to be something which will interest children, but which adults might not know either. Does it sound simple? Well it isn't, but 'The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs' does it perfectly. And there's a bonus, but I'll tell you about that in a moment.
The pictures are beautiful - they bring the birds to life and you can really see the details, from how the feathers lie and the shape of the beak through to how the claws grip a branch. There's a wide selection of birds too - the long-tailed tit, great spotted woodpecker, cuckoo, nuthatch, willow warbler, goldcrest,buzzard, jay, woodpigeon, coal tit, pheasant and tawny owl. It's a careful selection - in most parts of the country you're likely to encounter some if not all of the birds.
The details are clear - you'll know where to look for each bird and sometimes that's an aid to identification. You'll recognise the eggs - but please restrict this to looking at the broken shells rather than into nests. But it's the 'Did You Know?' facts which I loved. Did you know that the domed nest which a long-tailed tit builds may take as long as three weeks to construct and is lined with around 1500 soft feathers? Or that jays bury nuts in the autumn and return to them when food is scarce in the winter?
But I was going to tell you about the bonus, wasn't I? My great delight is being able to lie in bed of a morning and listen to birdsong - or to take a walk in the woods and just ‘’listen’’ to the sounds around me. Well, to the right of the pages is a panel with pictures of all the birds in the book and when you press the picture you hear the bird’s song and the quality is really excellent. we get a lot of wood pigeons coming into the garden and I could easily have believed that the sound was coming from the outside. The recordings are battery powered but don't worry about little fingers getting to the battery - you need one of those very small screwdrivers which you can never find when you need one to open the battery compartment. It just goes to prove that you are never too old for a board book - or a sound book for that matter. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals then you might also enjoy The English Countryside (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts) by Ruth Binney which can be enjoyed by both adults and children, or Amazing Animal Journeys by Chris Packham and Jason Cockroft.
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham at Amazon.com.
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