Children's Book Review: Bird Brains by Jeremy Hyman

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge,from Moon Dance Press, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it,  all opinions are my own.

Today we're talking about birds!

Since Miss Grace had 5 babies born in a nest on the porch, she's had birds on the brain (LOL, pun intended), so this is a greta book to share for our Prevent Summer Brain Drain series!

Synopsis:

The Wild & Wacky World of Birds

Birds do the wildest things! (And you thought all they did was fly...) In Bird Brains, learn how birds use sound,color, and dances to communicate with each other, and camouflage, dive-bombing, and projectile vomiting to discourage predators. They build nests with sticks, stones, feathers, vines, mud, mucus, saliva, and more. Full-color illustrations showcase these cool behaviors.

Did you know that...

-birds are smart? Crows watch traffic lights in big cities so cars can break open hard nutshells.

-birds are strong? Raptors can withstand G-forces of more than 27 Gs when they swoop down to capture prey. That's three times more than a fighter jet pilot can stand without passing out.

-birds are gross? Parent birds feed regurgitated food to hatchlings.

Review:

This is a great introduction to birds for kids in the upper elementary age level. It starts off with the basics about different tyoes of birds, like anatomy and feather tyoes, and then starts on their differences This includes songs, calls, voices and adaptations. All of which not only allow kids to learn to identify birds, but to see how varied the species is!  The illustrations are super to show what jeremy is discussing, and the Glossary not includes vocabulary words, but also a list of the featured birds in the book, making for a great reference book for those studying birds as part of their science curriculum. This is a fun book that can leads to lots of nature walks, science projects and art projects!

About the Author / Illustrator:

Jeremy Hyman, PhD, teaches ornithology and animal behavior at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC. He studies the interplay of cooperative and competitive interactions in territorial communication in birds. He has written birding columns for a regional newspaper and gives talks to birding enthusiasts.

Haude Levesque, PhD, was born on the French coast. As a child, Haude liked to draw and observe animals. She started her biology degree in France and moved to Canada to study fish. She works in Minnesota, where she teaches physiology and marine biology at the University of Saint Thomas and lives with her husband, two sons, and two cats.