John James Audubon was a boy who loved the outdoors. He was a boy who believed in studying birds in nature, not just in books. And, in the fall of 1804, he was a boy determined to learn whether the small birds nesting near his Pennsylvania home would return in the spring.
For centuries, the disappearance of small birds each fall was a mystery. Did they spend the winter curled up in a ball, hibernating at river bottoms or in hollow logs, as many respected scientists believed? And when they did return, did they really fly back to the very same nests?
This stunning picture book reveals how one boy's curiosity and youthful experimentation led to the practice of bird banding, a technique essential to our understanding of birds. Readers will wonder, and hope, along with young John James Audubon as he hatches his plan to find out where the birds go when the weather turns cold and whether they would return, as he suspected. Exquisite watercolor illustrations move through the seasons, and Sweet's unique use of collage creates a three-dimensional gallery of nests, bird eggs, and wildlife that leap off the pages. Capturing the early passion of America's greatest painter of birds, this story will leave young readers listening intently for the call of birds large and small near their own homes.
Jacqueline Davies has been listening to and watching for birds since she was young. It was on a guided nature walk at a Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuary that she saw her first phoebe nest. Intrigued by stories of the phoebe's faithfulness, she began to research the small gray flycatcher and discovered the bird's link to John James Audubon. Today, she can still be found around her home in Needham, Massachusetts, peering under bridges and searching in the shadows of eaves for the nest of the phoebe bird. This is Davies's first book for Houghton Mifflin. For more information, visit
www.jacquelinedavies.com.
Melissa Sweet's maiden name is Vogels, the German word for bird, and she grew up in a family fascinated by birds. She is the talented illustrator of many books, including the award-winning
Girls Think of Everything and its companion,
The Sky's the Limit. Her innovative collages and watercolors have been described as a "creative delight." She lives in Rockport, Maine, where she watches a family of chickadees return every year to nest.
For more information, visit
www.melissasweet.net.
