The Eagles are Back - Hardcover

Jean Craighead George was the preeminent nature writer for children. She is the author of My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves, and her work spanned 50 years. She died in May 2012 at age 93.

After completing his studies at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, Wendell Minor began creating original designs for book publishers in New York City. He has created jacket illustrations for more than 2000 books, and has illustrated dozens of books for children, including America The Beautiful and Yankee Doodle America. He lives in Connecticut.

Gr 3-4-This tale of the bald eagle's survival from a threatened state is set in an undated era when eggs, made fragile as DDT pervaded the environment, cracked under the weight of brooding birds. George begins a fictionalized scheme telling of a boy observing eagles "by a remote lake" and then helping a park ranger to encourage adoption by local birds of an imported egg placed in their empty nest. The author seamlessly blends factual explanations into the story line, telling how the eagles have wide influence on nature as their eating habits send food remnants to smaller creatures and then sketching the birds' years of decline. The boy and the ranger become observers as a successful hatching occurs, and the text then follows the care and growth of the eaglet until it takes flight. Minor's paintings handsomely convey the eagles' impressive stature and the natural settings they inhabit. The book fits loosely with two others in which these longtime collaborators describe animals recovering from threatened extinction-The Wolves Are Back (2008) and The Buffalo Are Back (2010, both Dutton). The factual information is a quick sketch with no author's note or end matter-save a short list of websites-to add facts or indicate if the story is actually grounded in real events. Libraries and readers will welcome this engaging introduction to the iconic bird, and it is a nice addition to the growing list of books featuring children as active participants in caring for the natural world.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Bostonα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.