Please welcome my guest author today, Maria Gianfererrai with a STEM list for bird-watching and/or bird-loving kids! We are also giving away a copy of her newest nonfiction picture book, Hawk Rising, illustrated by Caldecott winner Brian Floca! To enter, please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom.
Hawk Rising by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Brian Floca
Both a girl and a father hawk watch and wait, while the baby chicks wait for a meal. In lyrical prose, Hawk Rising shows the circle of life drama in a backyard. You only need binoculars and patience to spectate. [nonfiction picture book, ages 4 and up]
p.s. Free bird journal for kids from Doodles and Jots
p.p.s. More bird posts:
The Science of Owls and Bats Through Picture Books
Baltimore the Snowy Owl and Owl Books for Kids
Birds of North Captiva, Florida, Saved from Extinction
p.p.p.s. More great children’s books for bird watching:
Birding for Babies: An Opposites Book by Chloe Goodhart, illustrated by Gareth Lucas
This beautiful board book series manages to pack a lot of information into each page! The rhyming text makes this a great read-aloud, and a sidebar on each page adds an interesting fact. Birds from around the world are introduced, as well as the concept of opposites. [board book series, ages 1 and up]
Backyard Birding for Kids: An Introduction to Ornithology (Field Guide, Projects, and More!) by Erika Zambello
This handy guide is small enough to fit into a pocket to take with you as you hike around looking for birds. Color photographs make it easy and fun to identify birds. [nonfiction field guide, for ages 6 and up]
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This bird nerd is as happy as a lark! I’m celebrating the release of my first bird book, Hawk Rising, with a list of some of my favorite bird books. It was so hard to narrow it down to only 10 books, but I tried to choose both picture books and middle-grade nonfiction books that may not be as well known.
Top 11 STEM Bird Books for Bird-Loving Kids!
Take wing and soar with these birdy books!
1. Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard by Annette LeBlanc Cate
Winner of a Sibert honor, this is an entertaining and informative intro to bird-watching and identification. [nonfiction guidebook, ages 9 and up]
2. Robins! How They Grow Up by Eileen Christelow
Another fun intro to one of our most well-known and beloved birds. I love how robins nest in unusual places, like the hoe hanging in the artist’s garden shed. [nonfiction picture book, ages 6 and up]
3. Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Brightest Bird by Pamela Turner
What does the crow know? Read this fascinating book and find out about these clever corvids. [nonfiction chapter book, ages 10 and up]
4. Alex the Parrot: No Ordinary Bird by Stephanie Spinner, illustrated by Meilo So
Meet Alex, the African Grey Parrot, who learned to count, add and subtract, recognize shapes and colors, and to speak and understand hundreds of words. It’s also a friendship story between Alex, and his trainer, Irene Pepperberg. [nonfiction picture book, ages 8 and up]
5. Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins
Up! Up! I love watching soaring turkey vultures! They’re nature’s great cleaner-uppers with a vital role in supporting ecosystem health. [picture book, ages 5 and up]
6. Woodpecker Wham! by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins
Written in rhyme, and full of onomatopoeic sounds that make this intro to woodpeckers a very rollicking read-aloud. [picture book, ages 4 and up]
7. Beauty and the Beak: How Science, Technology, and a 3-D Printed Beak Rescued a Bald Eagle by Deborah Lee Rose & Jane Veltkamp
Meet Beauty, a bald eagle who was shot, then rescued, and fitted with a 3-D beak—a heartwarming and uplifting story of technology and survival. [nonfiction picture book, ages 8 and up]
8. The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk by Jan Thornhill
This book broke my heart! Thornhill traces the demise and ultimate extinction of the great auk, and the rise of conservation movements to protect wild creatures. A must-read! [picture book, ages 9 and up]
9. The Triumphant Tale of the House Sparrow by Jan Thornhill
A naturalistic and fascinating history of another ordinary, and yet extraordinarily adaptable bird, the house sparrow. [picture book, ages 9 and up]
10. Moonbird by Phillip Hoose
Another Sibert honor winner: shorebird Rufa Red Knot B95 has lived an astonishingly long life, at least twenty years, and has flown the distance to the moon (and halfway back), more than 325,000 miles, hence his nickname: Moonbird. It’s amazing to think that this bird has survived for so long despite the fact that the red knot population has decreased by nearly 80%, in part due to the destruction of the horseshoe crab population, on whose eggs they feed. [nonfiction chapter book, ages 10 and up]
Plus three oldie-but-goodie bonus favorites
Unbeatable Beaks by Stephen Swinburne
The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Five Books for Bird-loving Adults
The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
Birdology by Sy Montgomery
H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
Vulture by Katie Fallon
The Race to Save the Good Lord Bird by Phillip Hoose
Hawk Rising GIVEAWAY!
Enter the GIVEAWAY to win your very own copy of Hawk Rising (sorry—US residents only). Please fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter.
Thanks to the folks at Roaring Brook Press for donating a copy, and hearty thanks to Mia for featuring this bird nerd’s feathery list!
Maria Gianferrari’s favorite pastime is searching for perching red-tailed hawks while driving down the highway. When she’s not driving, she loves watching birdcams. Her favorite feathered stars are Cornell hawk Big Red and her late mate, Ezra, who together raised fifteen chicks since they began nesting in 2012. Maria is also the author of Hello Goodbye Dog and Coyote Moon, both published by Roaring Brook Press as well as the Penny & Jelly Books (HMH), Officer Katz & Houndini (Aladdin), Terrific Tongues (Boyds Mills Press) and the forthcoming Operation Rescue Dog (Little Bee). She lives in Virginia with her scientist husband, artist daughter, and rescue dog, Becca. Visit her at mariagianferrari.com, on Facebook or Instagram.
p.s. Related posts:
Picture Books with Birds as Inspiration or Character
All About Hummingbirds: A Unit for Kids
Birds of North Captiva, Florida, Saved From Extinction!
Osprey Migration Books for Kids
Science of Owls and Bats Through Picture Books
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
The Traveling Taco:
- Reading Rockets’ Summer Reading Guide 2025
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
- Junior Library Guild Gold Selection
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
We Sing from the Heart: How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court
- ALSC Notable Children’s Book
- 2025 Carter G. Woodson Book Award Middle Level Honoree
- Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children
- 2024 Julia Ward Howe Prize for Children’s Literature Winner
- California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book
- Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Winner (from National Council for the Social Studies and Children’s Book Council)
- Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year 2025
- Junior Library Guild Gold Selection
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- ⭐ Starred review from School Library Journal!
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- dPICTUS 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Nautilus Silver Winner, Nonfiction Children’s Picture Book
- Sunshine State Young Readers Award Orange Blossom List for Nonfiction
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Bank Street College’s The Best Children’s Books of the Year
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
“What are your favorite books about birds?” Audubon did some good ones!–I used to have a copy of his parrots engraving on the wall years ago!
Thanks for entering John!
Lucky you, John!! That’s another reason why I love Jackie’s biography of Audubon.
My favorite bird book is Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems. It chronicles two months of what happens when hummingbirds nest from building the nest to the babies hatching and growing.
I love hummingbirds! Thanks for the great book recommendation Jennifer!
I’m not familiar with that title, Jennifer–I’ll have to look for it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I’ve noticed more MG novels with bird watching themes in the last two years. Hope it continues.
Hi Pat,
Yay for bird watching themes in middle grade novels!
I have noticed that too, Patricia, and I am the happier for it 🙂
I am such a fan of Marias and this book looks like another fantastic one. I’m so glad that “The Boy Who Drew Birds” is on your list. Its one of my favorites.
I will have to add The Boy Who Drew Birds to my TBR pile! Thanks for the heads up Jen!
Thanks for the kind words, Jen :). It is such a lovely book, both Jackie’s text and Melissa Sweet’s perfectly complementary art.
One of my kids favorites is The Bird Alphabet Book.
That sounds like a lovely alphabet book! Thanks for sharing Leela!
Honestly I don’t have a favorite bird book. I like pet birds and when I was a teenage I had a budgie book that I wore out. I kept budgies as a pet. Later in life, I had finches, and love birds.
Hi Brenda,
Thanks so much for entering. What a great experience to raise birds as pets!