Parrots Over Puerto Rico

I used this book for a unit on endangered animals and it was a hit. The illustrations are amazing and so detailed. The story is a wonderful history of Puerto Rico along with the plight of the parrot. The students enjoyed seeing the photographs at the end of the book, and they were all very impressed with what is being done to save this endangered species.

Parrots Over Puerto Rico is a Junior Library Guild selection that teaches about the history of the Puerto Rican parrot and the island of Puerto Rico, highlighting current efforts to save the Puerto Rican parrot by protecting and managing the endangered species. The heavy, dark, single-column font—Francois One—that stretches across the bottom of each two-page spread may be unpleasant from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, but it is easy to read against the colorful backgrounds that Susan L. Roth designed. Let me say that being distracted by the typeface selection is the only complaint I have with this charming children’s book.The wonderful paper and fabric collages of parrots flying above the island and through the trees are cleverly created and photographed to make scenes that demand your attention. Children and adults will want to spend time admiring the multiple layers and colors to see myriad objects with hidden bits and pieces in each collage. Each scene has depth or height that draws the reader down from the sky or up to the jungle canopy or through a village market. I marveled at the simple tools Roth used to create complex and remarkably colorful pictures for this book.Beyond the images, Roth and Cindy Trumbore researched and wrote a turbulent and sometimes sad history lesson in a compact 44 pages. While telling the story of the island, the women have detailed how its hurricanes, settlement and development have influenced the population of the beautiful parrots that call it home. “By 1967, only twenty-four parrots lived in El Yunque.”Roth and Trumbore show how governments worked together and even used the “cousin” of the Puerto Rican parrot, the Hispaniolan parrot, to help raise chicks to bring the population up. The book tells how scientists learned what kind of nest boxes were best for the parrots and how the scientists gathered eggs to raise the chicks in an aviary where they were protected from harm.This success story of bringing the Puerto Rican parrot back from the edge of extinction offers a wonderful way to introduce children to the plight of the wild populations of endangered species. It also offers a wonderful way to show how aviculture and the use of science can help save a wild population of an endangered species.If any of the words in this review looked daunting for reading aloud to a child, don’t worry. Roth and Trumbore wisely included an extra educational tool: On pages with foreign-language words, they included a pronunciation guide for the words at the bottom of the page. For instance, the earliest settlers of Puerto Rico called the island Boriquen, which is pronounced boh-ree-KEN and named the parrots iguaca, which is pronounced ih-GWAH-kah. There are well thought out definitions and explanations throughout the book to help children understand the history of the island and the daring comeback story of the iguaca.The last few pages include full-color photographs and information that can be used in a classroom setting to teach about the conservation program. I can highly recommend this book.

Beautifully written a must in child’s collection.

Beautiful book, full of some fun info... and a good beginning into a world of appreciating our world, specifically Boriken, my beautiful island.

I've been so impressed with this book. I can teach so many topics from it, at four different grade levels, in my reading classes (Second through Sixth grade students). The text is both imaginative and informative, almost haunting. Illustrations are stunning as well. You can do multiple lessons: comprehension, culture, environmental studies, theme, history.

This is a nice book with lots of fun information both about the puerto rican parrot and the history of Puerto Rico. Very nice and colorful illustrations throughout the book and given the length of the writing it would probably not be that suitable for small children (e.g. toddlers).

I am saving this for Christmas but the illustrations are beautiful and the Grandson I am giving it to has a wonderful interest in birds and knows so much about them already-just turned 5. I am sure he will really like it. It is so different as it reads like a tablet-the pages turn that way.

This book is GORGEOUSLY illustrated! It is a wonderful book for any age of children. Not only are the illustrations beautiful, it is very well researched, written, and informative as well! LOVE it!!

Lovely book for little ones

Beautiful pictures and a lovely story for child or adult, I love this book.