WHO HID THE STARS: HOW LIGHT POLLUTION CHANGES THE WORLD

 I wrote about the lovely and lyrical picture book, LIGHTS OUT, when it released in 2020. I hope you'll take a moment to click on that link and read about this remarkably powerful and gently persuasive book. It takes a creative approach to the animals' struggles when light pollution disrupts countless generations of evolutionary adaptations. I highly recommend that title and think of it often, especially during the two seasonal bird migration periods in Spring and Fall. 

If you are reading this as it posts live, you are smack in the midst of a several-week migration of birds from the southern regions to the north. Some birds travel established migration patterns for hundreds of miles, and others whose flyways cross thousands of miles. Science is studying but still has much to learn regarding how those paths remain so predictably consistent, how birds navigate them. Many are birds who have never traveled those paths. What we can do to learn from them, about how they do it, matters. In the meantime, everyone is certain that most birds include moonlight and starlight (yes, stars are used in some sort of magnetic compass orientation) so that LIGHT, of the natural sort, is essential to their success. 

    

EERDMANS BOOKS for Young Readers, 2026

WHO HID THE STARS: How Light Pollution Changes our World is written by Valentina Gottardi, Macie J. Michno, and illustrated by Danio Miserocchi. The translation by Sylvia Notini is masterful in capturing the complex text with a fluency and clarity that serves the authors well. This is a thorough examination of the impact of light pollution not only on birds but on water life, plant life, insects, communication among members of species, and many light's impacts that we directly observe (road kill, bugs zappers, and more) on a daily basis.

A Kirkus review calls the illustration "razzle-dazzle art", and I concur. The back matter and embedded-in-text suggestions for ways to modify our human activities allow young people not only to change their own habits but to become advocates for protection of the night skies. 

To learn more about light pollution, check out 

DARK SKY INTERNATIONAL.

BRAVE BABY HUMMINGBIRD: What a Wonder!

 Anyone who reads my posts will know that I am an unabashed bird lover. Any book that involves birds, especially books that reveal deep understanding of actual species and their traits,  has my attention immediately. If the subject happens to be birds that I've personally experienced,  the book has an enormous head start to my heart. This next picture book scores on every point and doesn't disappoint. 

A Paula Wiseman Book, 2024
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

BRAVE BABY HUMMINGBIRD is written by superb nonfiction author Sy Montgomery, and illustrated by Tiffany Bozic. Each of these creators is a nature-specialist in their own right, but together  their work transports readers into the actual world of two actual baby hummingbirds. It is rare for even one hummingbird (of any age) to survive the conditions or events that might deposit them into untrained hands, but these two landed with a knowledgeable naturalist who knows how to ask the right questions. 

(As a former licensed wildlife rescuer, I was concerned that the story told might encourage readers to attempt to raise or rehabilitate wild birds themselves, but Montgomery's author note and back matter makes clear the importance of caring for wildlife properly. "The voice", who represents the human giving care to the orphaned hummingbird pair, mentions having ten years of training to know when, how, and why to prepare the hummers for the real world. 

Montgomery offers many ways in which people can help on their own while still providing these critters with the skilled and trained support they require.)

I'm not usually a fan of assuming a first-person voice to convey realistic information from an animal subject, but this is an example of doing it well. More than well. There is very little attempt to suggest emotions and motivations, other than the realistic hunger and fear experienced when the parent hummer does not return to the nest. Otherwise, the narrative reveals observations, reactions, impulses, and actions that carry readers through the first full year of life for two hummers hatched in a nutshell sized nest, born the size of a bumblebee. Everything described reveals Montgomery's research into the process of raising and releasing baby birds, particularly hummingbirds, while celebrating their uniquely small size and remarkable flight patterns. 

The illustrations are both accurately detailed and inspiringly artistic, elevating an already jaw-dropping species to near-magical. Each visual element adds to the information base readers gain in exploring this lovely and lively book. 

As a side note, this is another of those picture books that will hook adults. I suspect that Montgomery may have read a memoir/informational book about humming birds that I often recommend. Anyone who is intrigued with hummers should seek it out: 

FASTEST THINGS ON WINGS: RESCUING HUMMINGBIRDS IN HOLLYWOOD, by Terry Masear, Harper Collins, 2016.