A Dance of Birds by Angela Blair

Coo! Caw! Cock-a-doodle-do! Bird-loving kids, this book is for you.

Look to the sky, to the trees. Birds are congregating, singing their songs, flying toward homes they built themselves. How do you spread your love of birds to your little ones? With this sweetly rhyming kids’ book full of sound and education.

A Dance of Birds by Angela Blair is a birder parent’s delight. It doesn’t take long for babies and the smallest toddlers to see the only living things who are flying amongst them. They look up, remind us to look up too.

And each bird is different. Each looks different and sounds different and lays different eggs. In rhyming fashion, this book shows us different kinds of birds—from hummingbirds to wood ducks to cardinals and beyond—and the sounds they make. If you’re just falling in love with birds as your child is, you may not be able to recognize the sounds of the birds outside your window yet, but after reading this short and sweet book, you’ll have the starter kit. A chirp from a cardinal, a tweet from a goldfinch—this book is as interested in the sounds that accompany our daily walks as it is the color that birds bring to our world.

And the illustrations! Each bird is depicted with such life, such light. The ruffles of their feathers are tactile; the lines on their beaks are upturned with gentle but unmistakable smiles. Your child will love to pull this book off their shelves and rediscover the birds on the tree outside their window. The curiosity is real; A Dance of Birds rewards it.

The black birds—the crow and the starling—are gorgeously rendered creatures in the book. Purples and greens shining in the sun just like in real life, a magical image for these seemingly mystical beings. The geese, however loud and obnoxious you may render them, are depicted with a liveliness and grace, their wings ever-so-carefully curved to make for a soft landing. They’d be thrilled with the depiction.

The read-aloud nature is largely strong, with a couple stumbling points or over-easy rhymes, but otherwise this book is easy to read with a notable rhythmic quality.

The book also shows a short but rewarding sequence of the ingenuity and intelligence of birds, like the robins building their nest, laying their blue eggs, and watching their little ones take flight for the first time.

A Dance of Birds is a lovely gift to the birder parent and an even bigger one to their little love bugs, searching the sky for inspiration.