Vulture View (by April Pully Sayre)

As the air warms, vultures lift from their perches and ride the thermals in search of food. After finishing off a carcass or two, they clean themselves and head back to the family tree where they await the next dawn.

You rarely hear the words "cute" and "vulture" in the same sentence, but in describing this book, you just might. With cut-paper collage, illustrator Steve Jenkins has made these amazing birds look friendly, and beautiful. And, April Pulley Sayre tells their story in language that is kid-like, and friendly too. Beginning readers especially will enjoy the rhyming phrases that both follow the birds throughout their day and provide a simple, scientific introduction to this unusual topic.

With shadowed vultures perched in a craggy tree against the blood-red sky, the cover of VULTURE VIEW looks a bit ominous. However, the eye in the featherless face of the one vulture hovering overhead almost seems to smile. And that should convince any reader to look inside to see the world from the viewpoint of this amazing bird. By the end, they may even be convinced to look further, and notes at the end pointing to Web sites and even turkey vulture festivals will show them how.

Author: April Pully Sayre
Illustrator: Steve Jenkins
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
Publication date: October 2, 2007
Number of pages: 32
Hardcover price: $16.95
Read Aloud: 4
Read Alone: 6