Susan L. Roth

Silbert Award Winner
The collages are stunning, colorful and full of life and movement, bringing the island of the parrots to life. The book acts as a history through the eyes of the parrots, starting before people lived on the island and follows their rise and fall until modern day when they needed to be hand hatched in order to increase the population. Than back pages contain contain more real photos of the parrots and the scientists dedicated to helping them survive. The writing, while incredibly informative, does not live up to the liveliness or the interest of the illustrations, leaving my 5 year old bored about 4 pages in.… (mere)

The first part of this book draws parallels between the history of the Puerto Rican parrot the history of Puerto Rico itself. About halfway through the book, when the parrots become truly endangered, the focus shifts away from Peurto Rican history and concentrates on efforts to rehabilitate the parrot population.

Interesting and well-written, but not a stunner in my eyes. In terms of nonfiction books for kids about endangered species, I greatly prefer last year's [b:Moonbird|2017786|Moonbird|Joyce Dunbar|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320427691s/2017786.jpg|2022111] by Phillip Hoose, which was for older readers and more in-depth. I also really love [b:Can We Save the Tiger|9322920|Can We Save the Tiger?|Martin Jenkins|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320546044s/9322920.jpg|14206118] by Martin Jenkins. And of course there is the fantastic [b:Kakapo Rescue|7683285|Kakapo Rescue Saving the World's Strangest Parrot (Scientists in the Field Series)|Sy Montgomery|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388303129s/7683285.jpg|10330134] by Sy Montgomery.

I don't want to be overly critical of a perfectly good book, but I do think this suffers from an in-between problem. The illustrations are beautiful and evocative, but give off a "little kid" vibe, which doesn't match the more sophisticated vocabulary used in the book. So it's somewhere in between a primary and intermediate audience. It's too long for a group read-aloud and I don't think it quite rises to the level of a great dramatic story. Yet it's not written in a way that lends itself to fact finding for reports, except the afterword which has photographs and a timeline. So it's in between narrative nonfiction and traditional informational nonfiction.

But maybe this in-betweeness is a good thing on some level. It might reach a wider audience and have broader appeal because it isn't so easily categorized. I certainly hope to see more nonfiction of this caliber for young readers!… (mere)