A Warbler's Journey

by Scott Weidensaul, Nancy Lane (Illustrator)

Overview

* NPR FAVORITE BOOK OF 2022

With poetic language and lush oil paintings, children will cheer on the tiny but mighty yellow warbler as she makes her perilous migration  journey from the tropics of Central America to the Canadian tundra.

* WINNER OF JOHN BURROUGHS ASSOCIATION RIVERBY AWARD FOR YOUNG READERS

The warbler is helped along the way by three different children and families: a Nicaraguan family whose traditional shade coffee farm sustains migrant birds, an African-American family that creates a  garden in their backyard on the gulf coast to provide food for her, and a  family from The Łutsël K'é Dene First Nation in Canada who have preserved land for all animals.

"With its engaging story and richly detailed illustrations of one yellow warbler's epic spring migration, this book is sure to inspire and inform readers of all ages."

          —David Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds, What it Means to be a Bird, and many others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780940719477
Publisher:	The Gryphon Press
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Scott Weidensaul is the author of nearly thirty books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Living on the Wind. His most recent book is the New York Times bestselling A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds (WW Norton, 2021). A writer and researcher specializing in birds and bird migration, Weidensaul spearheads a number of major research projects focusing on bird migration and lectures widely on wildlife and environmental topics. Weidensaul is a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society. He and his wife Amy now live in the northern Appalachians of New Hampshire. This is his first picture book.

Nancy Lane is an artist and illustrator who has illustrated more than 24 picture books. She has also been featured in numerous fine arts shows and teaches drawing and painting. She has a BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art and enjoys hiking with her husband and their dogs in the woods surrounding their log home in New York’s Finger Lakes region.

Read an Excerpt

She flew all night, with brilliant stars to point her north. She flew as the sun rose beyond her right wing, and flew on as it sank, fiery and orange, beyond her left wing. It was like a race with no finish line and no place to rest. But she was strong. This is what she was meant to do. The strength of her ancestors was in her wings.

Editorial Reviews

06/27/2022

This painterly picture book traces the migration of a single yellow warbler, “the color of a ripe lemon,” from the tropical forests of Nicaragua to the far reaches of subarctic Canada, offering glimpses of three children who spot it along the way. Lane’s naturalistic art visualizes the journey over land and sea as the fowl flies through the night among other migrating birds. In Nicaragua, a brown-skinned grandfather tells a grandchild that people call the bird reinita amarilla: “They eat the insects that hurt our coffee trees,” Weidensaul writes. In Florida, a Black elder introduces the bird as a yellow warbler: “She must have just arrived, flying all the way from Mexico across the ocean. Imagine that!” And in the Northwest Territories (per back matter), an Indigenous child who encounters the bird knows another word for her: iyesaze. It’s a lushly wrought look at knowledge both intergenerational and regional—and how that knowledge connects people across time and place. Back matter offers suggestions for helping migratory birds. Ages 5–8. (May)

Publishers Weekly

An awesome account of an awe-inspiring feat.”—Booklist (starred review)

"Lyrical language will entice readers....No one who reads this can remaine unmoved by this tiny bird's tenacity; this is sure to create avid new bird-watchers."—Kirkus Reviews

“A Warbler's Journey is masterfully woven words of wonder written with hope as a warm tailwind. It is art and science about a tiny bird that will make a big difference.” —J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature and Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to  Birds and Lesser Beasts

“Weidensaul’s poetic and inspirational language gracefully draws the reader into the warbler’s amazing journey. Nancy Lane’s vivid oil paintings joyfully illuminate the text.”—Phillip Hoose, author of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird and Hey, Little Ant, and many others

From the Publisher

2022-04-13
The story of one bird’s nearly 4,000-mile migratory journey.

The female yellow warbler has lived in the highlands of Nicaragua for five months, but on this day, she feels different, and that night, she takes off to the north. She flies every night for a week until she reaches the Yucatán Peninsula, where she prepares for the unceasing 600-mile crossing of the Gulf of Mexico. Several weeks later, she finally reaches the shores of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada, where she was born and where her mate waits. Along the bird’s journey, Weidensaul introduces three children who spy her: a young brown-skinned girl picking coffee on her family’s plantation, a Black boy in his grandmother’s backyard garden on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and a Native girl celebrating the protection of her people’s land around Great Slave Lake. Lyrical language will entice readers: “The tropical night air was warm and steamy. Snakes slithered. Bats swooped on leathery wings.” Lane’s realistic oil paintings take up three-quarters of each double-page spread, immersing readers in the habitats the yellow warbler passes through. The artwork varies perspective, sometimes focusing on the bird, other times pulling back for a wider view and giving kids an opportunity to seek out the tiny yellow creature. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

No one who reads this can remain unmoved by this tiny bird’s tenacity; this is sure to create avid new bird-watchers. (map, ways to help migratory birds) (Informational picture book. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews