Backpack Explorer: Bird Watch: What Will You Find?

I have recently decided that birds are kind of creepy, with their pointy little beaks and soulless eyes, but if you have given this book to me as I child, it would have never left my side. I would have required a backpack, binoculars, camera, and snacks, and would have carefully removed the tiny magnifying glass and stored it away very safely. I would have studied the bird calls and the birds so that I could have identified them "out in the field", and would have dutifully played all of the bird games. The bird patch stickers at the end of the book? I would have diligently completed all of the tasks so I could have put those on the page, although I probably would have been stingy with the other bird stickers, and my brother would have eventually have stolen the page and put them on his lunch box.

My mother would have reluctantly let me smear peanut butter on a pinecone an hang it up in the yard, although she would not have bought me bird seed, which we didn't have in the house, suggesting instead that I roll it in cornflakes, which we did. She would have let me build a next out of sticks and dryer lint, as long as I didn't leave it on the porch. She would have told me to go make the bird calls for my brother, because she was busy.

There's a lot of good information in these pages about different kids of birds, nests, and food sources for birds, and I would have read that avidly, but it is the activities that would really have spoken to my "let's check all the boxes" ten-year-old heart. There is a good mix of photography and illustrations.