Review Detail

THE NEST THAT WREN BUILT is a lovely journey through the process of building a nest to hatchlings who leave the nest. The book uses poetic language to describe the many steps along the way from twigs to spider egg sacks to snakeskin to tufts of rabbits fur and beyond. The book takes on an educational element in describing the things included in the nest as well as the reasons for their inclusion. The end of the book includes interesting facts to augment the learning experience.

What I loved: The illustrations are elegant, like looking through an old field guide. The text is really lovely and poetic and it easily rolls off the tongue when read aloud. The text-to-picture ratio is ideal without any densely worded pages, and the font is clear and easy to read. The inclusion of factual steps with reasons behind them all the way through to the eggs and hatchlings who live in the nest presents a great learning opportunity with sequential order, facts about birds, and details about nature.

This would be a great book in a classroom setting with plenty of things to learn and beautiful illustrations to admire. There are plenty of activities that could arise such as imagining how children would build their nests, adding to the poem (imagining what would come next), etc. This would be great picture book to spark discussion among young learners.

Final verdict: Educational and lovely, THE NEXT THAT WREN BUILT is a great learning experience through the process of building a nest through to the birds who are born there. Highly recommend in a classroom setting and/or just to explore and learn at home.