Andrea D'aquino

Author and illustrator Andrea D’Aquino tells the story of Florence Merriam Bailey, born in 1863 in New York, who influenced the modern practice of bird-watching by the field guides she wrote and by her advocacy for bird protection.

Florence was fascinated by birds as a child. She learned all their unique songs and languages. As a grown-up, she saw people wearing bird feathers on hats, and discovered that people shot and killed birds in order to study them, rather than just observing them in the wild. (While the book shows women wearing hats with feathers, in the author’s note at the end D’Aquino shares that in the lucrative hat trade, it was high fashion not only to have feathers on one’s hat but even full bird carcasses. This trend was estimated to have caused the death of some five million birds a year.)

Florence wanted to help birds survive. She learned everything she could about them, recording her findings on paper and with a camera.

She began to write books, including one of the first field guides to American birds. She suggested using binoculars instead of guns to see birds up close. Florence’s pleas were finally heard, the author writes, and “the world became safer for the birds, and more beautiful for us all.”

The author uses her trademark hand-painted collaged papers, creating pleasing, child-friendly images in bright colors that convey the beauty of the birds. Her use of torn-paper confetti and blob-like shapes to represent clouds and trees are delightful, and show that one needn’t be able to replicate images exactly to create effective pictures.

In the back matter, D’Aquino gives more biographical information about Florence, as well as a list of resources. She notes that Florence became the first woman fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1929, and she was later awarded its medal for one of the ten books she authored on birds. Florence organized several chapters of the Audubon Society, and Florence’s brother Clinton served as a founder of the National Geographic Society. It is interesting that one family contributed so much to the appreciation and preservation of natural resources.

Evaluation: Children 5 and up will no doubt be entranced by the illustrations and intrigued by the story of how a young girl noticed and appreciated the beauty in living creatures around her, and grew up to help preserve it.… (mer)

Lovely collage-like illustrations and warm, enthusiastic prose tell the story of this woman ahead of her time, and thank goodness, for she helped save many birds. The author deftly interweaves science and wonder, emphasizing phrases by placing each word on its own line. I love the page "TOOLS FLORENCE USED FOR BIRD-WATCHING: camera, notebook, pencils, binoculars. These are the same tools I take birding, and that bring me much joy and comfort. Another wonderful page expresses Florence's sadness at bird-watchers shooting birds to study them, illustrated with a tiny Florence flying, arms outstretched, beside a giant songbird. It reminds me of the vivid dream of flying I had as a child. Backmatter includes a brief biography, Birds Still Need Our Help, and a list of Resources.… (mer)