OMNIBIRD: An Avian Investigator's Handbook by Giselle Clarkson — reviewed by Stella
If you can resist this book, you are an expert in avoiding something thrilling. Giselle Clarkson’s excellent book about all things birds is sure to engage young minds and old. Filled to the brim with intriguing information, it’s perfectly pitched with its bite-size chunks of text, excellent diagrams and illustrations, and humorous asides. Clarkson encourages us to be avian investigators: equipped with our toolkit of omnibird knowledge and our best tool — observation. Being a bird puzzle-solver has never been more lively. From poop to feathers, to all the parts of the wing, to the different styles of wings, and tails, and heads, and beaks, you’ll be spotting birds high above you, deciphering and coming up with —It’s a gull! A blackbird or possibly a thrush! A starling! There are 18 investigator notes featuring a range of birds, including ducks, gulls, corvids, chickens, flightless birds, birds of prey, and the humble sparrow. There are beautiful eggs (spot the odd one out!), a plumology lesson, an array of different nests from the carefully woven thrush work to the scattershot style of the sparrow, and an explainer on bird names — you’ll know your gymnorhina tibicen from your griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus in no time! And so much more. Clarkson’s wonderful illustrations draw you in (there’s great bird attitude here), and the text is lively — so many facts, but also humour and speculation. While there are answers to bird questions you didn’t know you had, there are also questions to ask. What does it feel like to fly? What are they saying? What bird would you be? There’s a charge to use your imagination and your detective skills (observational senses). It's a book about birds and it’s a book about noticing the natural world around us — its awesomeness. Omnibird is a gem — a book that informs, inspires and delights.
