Information text - Lord God Bird

This is a great example of an incredibly engaging information text with a powerful message. In The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004), Phillip Hoose tells the story of extinction: the loss forever of an incredible bird, the Ivory-bill Woodpecker.  The story stretches over 200 years of history mixing science, economics, and social and political history. A tremendous amount of research went into this book. Each page includes unique details that keep the reader's interest, humanizing the story. Many black and white photos and maps bring the story to life.

The first chapter opens in a dramatic fashion. The "Father of Ornithology", Alexander Wilson is described as a "walking powder keg". Early birders shot birds in order to learn about them because they didn't have the technology to observe from a distance (binoculars and scopes) or capture the image or sound of birds (cameras with long distance lens and audio recording devices). After shooting some several birds, he brought an injured Ivory-bill back to his hotel room to study. As he was stabling his horse he returned to his room a few minutes later to find the air filled with dust and chunks of plaster on his bed. The great bird was smashing away at a wall with its mighty bill and just seconds away of escaping. Wilson was frequently bloodied by the Ivory-bill as he sketched it over the next few days. The great bird refused to eat and three days later it was dead. To introduce this book to teens (gr. 6-12), I would tell about this chapter and use some "props". I would hold up a yardstick and explain that this was the wing span of the bird (know as Lord God bird because that was people's reaction to it when they saw it). I might also use a document camera to share some of the photos or the maps of the collapsing habitat on page 156-157.

The author, Philip Hoose, clearly cares passionately about the loss of biodiversity and challenges his young readers,  "Can we get smart enough fast enough to save what remains of our biological heritage?" He is the author of another favorite information text of mine, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, 2010 National Book Award winner. I was lucky enough to hear him speak and meet him at the last annual OELMA conference. Definitely a "non-fiction author with authority".