In the May/June 2025 issue of the magazine Stephanie Vanderpol is doing a fantastic Come and Explore section on the Bald Eagle, and she thought it would be fun to have a coloring contest with a few bird books as the prize. So that was a great excuse to check out a few dozen bird picture books from the library and then narrow the options down. I wanted the absolute funnest few on our feathered friends that could be found!
That turned out to be fewer than I’d figured. It seems that, no matter what the target age range, bird book authors seem compelled to mention that, according to the experts they’ve consulted, birds used to be dinosaurs. This little pebble of evolutionary nonsense wouldn’t be a big deal for older, more discerning kids, but I was looking for books for the littlest of littles, still in the discernment developing stage, and I didn’t want to present this pebble to them. So, I tossed the evolutionists and kept searching. What follows are the very best of the rest, with so much fun info on our flighted friends. God clearly loves variety!
These are arranged by target audience, younger to older, but they are all picture books and their pictures could be enjoyed by most kids. The one exception is the first, which is a board book – “big kids” won’t be caught reading a board book, no matter how good.
Odd Birds: Meet nature’s weirdest flock
by Laura Gehl
2022 / 22 pages
I’ve long been on the lookout for board books that weren’t boring. I wanted something I could read to my kids that would interest me too. This is one of those kinds of twofers, with the first 16 pages talking about goofy birds, like the blue-footed booby, and a goggly-eyed “hoatzin” that “smells like poop” for the kids to enjoy, and then four pages at the back that get into the 8 featured birds in a bit more detail. Did you know the Oilbird can fly at night using echolocation like bats? Very cool!
How To Find a Bird
by Jennifer Ward and Diana Sudyka
2020 / 48 pages
Got a budding birdwatcher in the house? Then this could be the perfect book for y’all, with tips and tricks on how to start seeing all sorts of different feathered fowl. The instructions are simple: kids are encouraged to try to blend in, “And move slowly.” They’re told:
Quiet is good too.
So quiet you can hear
your heartbeat
Every two-page spread includes a picture of a child or two sitting and waiting, or sneaking up calmly on the assortment of birds highlighted. There are more than 50 birds depicted, and it is simply astonishing the variety of what God’s all been up to. We get to peek in on birds that burrow and birds that splash, birds that can blend right in with the trees they are sitting on, and birds that are arrayed in the most garish, gorgeous display. Lots to learn in this one, and so many pictures to appreciate.
Dig, Dance, Dive: How birds move to survive
by Etta Kaner and June Steube
2022 / 40 pages
Birds can walk on water? Sorta. The pheasant-tailed Jacana has toes that are so long they can traipse across the lily pads, their weight so spread out that it keeps them from sinking.
Birds can toboggan down the slopes? You bet. Adélie penguins can get super fast when they get low to the ground, sliding on their belly.
Birds climb? That too. The kakapo has wings that are way to short to fly with, but God has given them a great beak and strong feet perfect for holding on to branches.
Birds dance? The bird of paradise has a tuxedo that would dazzle on any dance floor. And it certainly gets the attention of all the girls.
Every two-page spread features another bird and the amazing ability they have to either dig, dance, dive, stalk, jump, climb, and pretty much everything else you could imagine… including just a smidge of flying too. This one is a whimsical treat!
Gertie: the darling duck of WWII
by Shari Swanson and Renée Graf
2023 / 40 pages
As the Second World War was drawing to an end, the Allies were making progress, but the casualties were also mounting. We can look back and know how close they were, but they didn’t know it at the time, and so many millions were looking for whatever good news they could find. And they settled on a great duck mom protecting her eggs. This is the true story of Gertie, a duck who built her nest on “top of a tall post poking out of the Milwaukee River near a big drawbridge.” She was right in the middle of a high-traffic location in the middle of the city, safe from any human mischief but highly visible to the many passersby. When she made the local paper, the crowds really started coming. That seems to have gotten the attention of the international papers, and soon even our boys overseas were reading about this plucky duck.
The whole town turned out to protect her, with the drawbridge tenders acting as the coming ducklings “godparents.” It was over the top, the amount of care taken for these half dozen ducks, but it was about something more than just them. This was goodness untainted, a little spot of normalcy to focus on, and something that people could celebrate no matter what else was going on.
Gertie and her ducklings only had the spotlight for three months, but during that time they were worldwide stars, and they have a small statue to them in Milwaukee today.
The Big Book of Birds
by Yuval Zommer
2019 / 64 pages
This is a big book indeed, a foot wide and almost one-and-a-half tall. That leaves plenty of room to get into more detail about the dozens of birds featured here. We learn about birds that eat snakes, how to bird-watch, why flamingos are pink, how many and how few feathers birds can have, which birds mate for life, and why bald eagles aren’t really bald. This encyclopedic in how much information is packed in here, but because it is shared in little nuggets all over pages just covered with birds, it’s not an intimidating read. While I don’t think it is a book that will read front to back (unless your child is already orthinologically bent), a kid doesn’t need to love birds to enjoy dipping into this repeatedly.
The one nit I have to pick is with the artist/author’s peculiar choice to show both bird eyes, even in a side-view. It gives some of the otherwise quite nice pictures a bit of a Picasso look. He’s having fun with it, I guess? One bit I had fun with is the egg search that happens throughout the whole book – one egg, shown on the opening page, is hidden away 15 times throughout the rest of it. What a great way to get kids poring over the pages.
