WHAT'S INSIDE A BIRD'S NEST?

Learn about the life cycle of a bird.

Opening with appealing images of baby birds crying out for food from all kinds of nests and parents finding food for them in wide-ranging environments, Ignotofsky draws young readers into this latest title in her engaging What’s Inside series. An experienced science writer, she simplifies and accessibly presents important information through minimal text set on spreads filled with carefully labeled drawings. Her illustrations are colorful, stylized, and full of detail. Birds all around the world court mates, construct nests, lay eggs, and guard their nestlings. Cutaway images show stages of embryo development, while sequential images illustrate a baby hatching and fledglings beginning to fly. One page discusses feathers; another labels bird anatomy. Ignotofsky also touches on the diet of various types of birds, points out ways they help the environment, and explores migration. Along the way, she defines important words such as incubation and embryo, highlighting these terms in orange. Humans who appear are racially diverse. One child, watching birds with an adult, reminds us, “You can look, but never touch a bird’s nest.” The author-illustrator wraps up by encouraging readers to help protect birds and learn more about them; suggestions for doing so and resources are provided in the backmatter.

A thoughtfully organized and delightfully illustrated introduction.