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By artist Charley Harper, the Charley Harper Coloring Book of Birds (Ammo Books, 2010) is an attractive collection of 32 stylized black-line drawings for ages 4 and up. |
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Jacqueline Davies’s The Boy Who Drew Birds (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004) – with wonderful illustrations by Melissa Sweet – is the picture-book story of John James Audubon, perhaps the world’s best-known painter of birds. For ages 5-9. |
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Audubon’s Birds of America Coloring Book (Dover Publications, 1974) has black-line versions of 44 of Audubon’s famous bird paintings. |
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Inspired by a painting by Peter Breugel, Stepanie Girel’s A Bird in Winter (Prestel Publishing, 2011) is the story of Mayken, an eight-year-old peasant girl, who – while ice-skating with friends – finds an injured bird and nurses it back to health. (Included is a beautiful reproduction of Breugel’s “The Hunters in the Snow.”) For ages 4-8. |
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Geraldine Elschner’s The Cat and the Bird (Prestel Publishing, 2012) – inspired by and illustrated in the style of artist Paul Klee – is the tale of a little cat who, despite a lovely home filled with toys, envies the freedom of the bird. Then one day the bird manages to set the cat free, and at the end the cat is dancing joyfully on the roof in the moonlight. For ages 5-8. |
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Deep Space Sparkle Art Lessons for Kids has a wonderful Paul Klee art lesson featuring The Cat and the Bird. Kids make gorgeous multicolored castles. |
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Bijou le Tord’s A Bird or Two (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 1999) is the picture-book story of Henri Matisse, told through a brief poetic text. For ages 6-10. |
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By Newbery Honor winner Margarita Engle, The Sky Painter (Two Lions, 2015), beautifully illustrated by Aliona Bereghici, is the first of a series of picture-book biographies-in-verse about great Latino naturalists. This is the story of Louis Fuertes, an upstate New York Puerto Rican, and one of the world’s greatest bird artists. Unlike Audubon, who killed and posed his subjects, Fuertes pioneered the painting of living birds in flight. During the 1920s, bird identification cards by Fuertes were included in every box of Arm & Hammer baking soda, causing children to become eager birdwatchers. A great pick for ages 5-8. |
