What It’s Like to Be a Bird by David Allen Sibley

What It’s Like to Be a Bird is an endlessly browsable resource for budding birdwatchers by a well-known authority in the field.

What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds are Doing and Why (Young Reader edition) by David Allen Sibley. Delacorte, 2023, 171.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-up

David Allen Sibley is perhaps the world’s best-known ornithologist, so much so that The Sibley Guide to Birds bears his name. The original edition of this book, published in 2020, is a best seller beloved by bird-watchers everywhere, so a scaled-down version for younger readers is a welcome resource. The author begins with a collection of facts peculiar to most of the genus, explaining the intricate construction and types of feathers, how bones and respiratory systems equip them for flight, how they reproduce, and much more. The bulk of the book comprises a “Portfolio”: a closer look at 70+ species, each given a double-page spread with full color illustrations (one is life size, or close to it).

It’s a browsable format—the author recommends keeping it on the shelf as a resource to look up questions or particular species. Looking up may be difficult, however, if you have a question or species in mind, because there’s no index or table of contents. That’s a detriment, to my mind. Another is that the author leans heavily on evolution as a way to explain “what birds are doing and why.” That’s obviously where he’s coming from, but other evolutionary-biased authors manage to leave origins alone and focus on the species at hand.

That said, it’s a beautiful book for budding bird lovers, with much more details than others we could recommend (see below). It’s worth a close look and may even be worth a purchase.

Overall Recommendation: 3.75 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4

Read more about our ratings here.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Resource: We’ve got a list!
• Reviews: Two of my favorites from that list are Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard and The National Wildlife Federation’s World of Birds (both starred reviews).

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