Melissa Stewart
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Feathers

Not Just for Flying

Feathers Not Just for Flying

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Sarah S. Brannen

Charles­bridge, 2014

for ages 5 to 9

ISBN 978–1‑58089–430‑2 (HC)
ISBN 978–1‑58089–431‑9 (PB)

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Feath­ers aren’t just for fly­ing. They can also pro­tect a bird’s skin like sun­screen, attract atten­tion like fan­cy jew­el­ry, or even dis­tract a preda­tor like a bullfighter’s cape. Feath­ers: Not Just for Fly­ing intro­duces young read­ers to six­teen birds, from the sleek emper­or pen­guin to the fluffed-up blue jay and describes just how pos­i­tive­ly prac­ti­cal feath­ers can be.

Honors and Awards

  • AAAS Books for Chil­dren Hol­i­day Gift Guide
  • ALA Notable
  • Ani­mal Behav­ior Society’s Out­stand­ing Children’s Book Award Finalist
  • Authors for Earth Day’s Eco Book of the Month
  • Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books Blue Rib­bon Title
  • Chica­go Pub­lic Library Best Infor­ma­tion­al Books for Young Readers
  • Cybils Award
  • Illi­nois Monarch Award Mas­ter List
  • Inter­na­tion­al Lit­er­a­cy Asso­ci­a­tion Teacher’s Choic­es Read­ing List
  • John Bur­roughs River­by Award
  • Junior Library Guild Selection
  • Kiss the Book’s Top 50 Books for Elementary
  • Mary­land Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Nominee
  • Mass­a­chu­setts Cen­ter for the Book, High­ly Recommended
  • Nation­al Sci­ence Teach­ers Association—
    Children’s Book Coun­cil Out­stand­ing Sci­ence Trade Book
  • Nerdy Book Club Award
  • Non­fic­tion Detec­tives Best Books of the Year
  • NYC Reads 365 Rec­om­mend­ed Read­ing List
  • Penn­syl­va­nia Key­stone to Read­ing Award Nominee
  • Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review
  • Read Across Amer­i­ca Fea­tured Title
  • SCBWI Crys­tal Kite Award
  • Sci­ence Books & Films Best Books of the Year
  • Ten­nessee Vol­un­teer State Book Award Nominee
  • Virginia’s Capi­tol Choic­es’ Note­wor­thy Title for Chil­dren and Teens
  • Wash­ing­ton State Town­er Award Nominee

Reviews

  “Feath­ers are not only a means of avian locomotion—they also have many sec­ondary pur­pos­es for birds. “Feath­ers can warm like a blan­ket… or cush­ion like a pil­low,” writes Stew­art. “Feath­ers can shade out sun like an umbrel­la… or pro­tect skin like sun­screen.” Mak­ing skill­ful use of trompe l’oiel, Brannen’s del­i­cate, refined water­col­ors give the project the feel of a bird­ers’ scrap­book, as though the feath­ers, “pho­tographs,” infor­ma­tion­al notes, and oth­er ephemera that appear have been taped, sta­pled, and clipped to the pages (one note even has a telling cof­fee cup stain). A focused and thor­ough exam­i­na­tion that high­lights the strik­ing beau­ty of these often-unno­ticed nat­ur­al objects.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review)

“Feath­ers are decep­tive­ly sim­ple mar­vels of adap­ta­tion, pro­vid­ing not just loco­mo­tion for birds, but also pro­tec­tion, warmth, dec­o­ra­tion, and com­fort. This book cel­e­brates the amaz­ing ver­sa­til­i­ty of these eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able objects, which young read­ers might find right in their own back­yards. Vivid­ly ren­dered water­col­or illus­tra­tions of feath­ers in life-sized scale com­ple­ment the straight­for­ward text that describes 16 species of birds and the unex­pect­ed func­tions of their feath­ers. Com­mon birds, such as jays, car­di­nals, pen­guins, and swans, share pages with more exot­ic species, like the rosy-faced love­bird of Namib­ia and a type of sand­grouse found in the Gobi Desert. Stew­art describes how chicks suck on the wet feath­ers of their par­ents to quench their thirst and how males of some species can play a type of high-pitched, squeaky love song by shak­ing their wings to attract female mates. Part sci­ence jour­nal, part read-along non­fic­tion, Feath­ers suc­ceeds in what such sci­ence books for young read­ers should strive to do: help young minds spot the extra­or­di­nary in the seem­ing­ly mun­dane.” (Book­list)

“Feath­ers are decep­tive­ly sim­ple mar­vels of adap­ta­tion, pro­vid­ing not just loco­mo­tion for birds, but also pro­tec­tion, warmth, dec­o­ra­tion, and com­fort. This book cel­e­brates the amaz­ing ver­sa­til­i­ty of these eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able objects, which young read­ers might find right in their own back­yards. Vivid­ly ren­dered water­col­or illus­tra­tions of feath­ers in life-sized scale com­ple­ment the straight­for­ward text that describes 16 species of birds and the unex­pect­ed func­tions of their feath­ers. Com­mon birds, such as jays, car­di­nals, pen­guins, and swans, share pages with more exot­ic species, like the rosy-faced love­bird of Namib­ia and a type of sand­grouse found in the Gobi Desert. Stew­art describes how chicks suck on the wet feath­ers of their par­ents to quench their thirst and how males of some species can play a type of high-pitched, squeaky love song by shak­ing their wings to attract female mates. Part sci­ence jour­nal, part read-along non­fic­tion, Feath­ers suc­ceeds in what such sci­ence books for young read­ers should strive to do: help young minds spot the extra­or­di­nary in the seem­ing­ly mun­dane.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“An album of images and a sim­ple text reveal that birds’ feath­ers are far more ver­sa­tile than one might expect. Com­par­ing feath­ers to famil­iar objects, Stew­art reveals that birds use them in sur­pris­ing ways. Her two-lev­el text is head­lined with a com­par­i­son and includes a short para­graph of expla­na­tion. Laid out like a scrap­book, her words share a page or spread with accu­rate and appeal­ing water­col­or images of a bird (iden­ti­fied by species and loca­tion), the every­day object in ques­tion and the feath­er…. con­sid­er­able research by both author and illus­tra­tor is evi­dent. The com­bi­na­tion of thought­ful approach and care­ful craft­ing makes this an excel­lent resource for ear­ly nature study.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Birds and the remark­able vari­ety of their feath­ers are the focus of this beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed vol­ume. On each dou­ble-page spread, the sim­ple main text (in larg­er font) points out the pri­ma­ry func­tions of the fea­tured feath­ers, while text box­es present facts spe­cif­ic to the rep­re­sen­ta­tive species fea­tured, along with small images of objects used by humans that are anal­o­gous to each feather’s pur­pose (e.g., sun block, life jack­et, umbrel­la). Brannen’s del­i­cate water­col­ors include pic­tures of birds in action using their feath­ers for var­i­ous pur­pos­es as well as won­der­ful­ly detailed close-ups of the feath­ers them­selves.” (The Horn Book)

“Beau­ti­ful and con­cise, this is an excel­lent resource for units on ani­mal adap­ta­tion, and a treat for the youngest bird lovers.” (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books)

“If you know bird­ers, this book is per­fect for them.” (Chica­go Post-Tri­bune)

“Melis­sa Stew­art has cre­at­ed anoth­er mas­ter­ful book on the won­ders and many uses of feath­ers. Each use is illus­trat­ed with species and spe­cif­ic details. The back mat­ter has details regard­ing kinds of feath­ers and a write up by the author pro­vides more infor­ma­tion for edu­ca­tion. Teach­ers can use this book as a vir­tu­al field trip in the class­room.” (Read­ing Today)

“[Stewart’s] use of metaphors to show what feath­ers do is an inspired choice, mak­ing the book all the more acces­si­ble for chil­dren…. The water­col­or illus­tra­tions are done to look like a nat­u­ral­ists field jour­nal with scraps of paper, loose feath­ers, notes, cup rings, and scraps of fab­ric. The result is a rich­ly visu­al book that will instruct and amaze, just the right sort of sci­ence book for young read­ers. Appro­pri­ate for ages 6–9.” (Read the full review.) (Wak­ing Brain Cells)

“Feath­ers: Not Just for Fly­ing by Melis­sa Stew­art with illus­tra­tions by Sarah S. Bran­nen is one of my favorite non­fic­tion titles of 2014. The mix of nar­ra­tive and visu­als is as pleas­ing as watch­ing a feath­er float­ing on a cur­rent of air; light, airy and down-to-earth. In addi­tion to the author’s note two pages are devot­ed to clas­si­fy­ing feath­ers; six cat­e­gories are described.” (Read the full review.) (Librar­i­ans Quest)

“This sub­ject is fas­ci­nat­ing and will encour­age read­ers to think about lit­tle known uses for many oth­er things in nature. Dis­cov­er­ing the dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es feath­ers serve inspires chil­dren to want to learn more about birds, study them in the wild and per­haps even draw them too.” (Smart Books for Smart Kids)

“What is there to learn about bird feath­ers? It turns out there is a wealth of infor­ma­tion. You might already be famil­iar with how feath­ers help birds fly or how they keep water birds dry, but Melis­sa Stew­art has found at least 16 dif­fer­ent ways birds use their feath­ers. To make it easy for chil­dren to relate to and remem­ber, she com­pares the uses to com­mon human-made objects with sim­i­lar pur­pos­es, like sun­screen and jew­el­ry. The text fea­tures a dual-lay­er for­mat, with the easy-to-read main text in a large font, and side­bars on each page to fill in the infor­ma­tion­al details. In the style of a nature jour­nal, the water­col­or illus­tra­tions look like you should be able to pluck them from the page. Nature lovers are going to want this for the illus­tra­tions alone.” (Grow­ing with Sci­ence)

“In Feath­ers: Not Just for Fly­ing, children’s sci­ence author Melis­sa Stew­art intro­duces read­ers to a mul­ti­tude of ways that feath­ers func­tion for birds. From insu­la­tion and shade to attract­ing atten­tion and cam­ou­flag­ing, feath­ers go above and beyond the call of flight. Sarah S. Brannen’s soft yet detailed illus­tra­tions show the birds in action, and her water­col­or paint­ings of sin­gle feath­ers are even more beau­ti­ful. Geared toward ele­men­tary-age chil­dren, Feath­ers: Not Just for Fly­ing is an infor­ma­tive and visu­al­ly appeal­ing intro­duc­tion to that char­ac­ter­is­tic which makes a bird a bird: the feath­er.” (Port­land Book Review)

“As they look through this beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed book, young read­ers will find out that the feath­er is a very ver­sa­tile thing, that it comes in many shapes and sizes, and does many dif­fer­ent kinds of jobs. Through­out the book the stun­ning art­work is pre­sent­ed in such a way that the pages look as if they belong in a scrap­book or naturalist’s jour­nal, and the effect is quite charm­ing.” (Read the full review.) (Through the Look­ing Glass)

Behind the Book

“While I was doing research for anoth­er book, I stum­bled across a fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle in Birder’s World (now Bird­Watch­ing mag­a­zine). It described some of the amaz­ing ways birds use their feath­ers. I knew this would be a great top­ic for a children’s book, so I pho­to­copied the arti­cle and pinned it to the idea board in my office. A few months lat­er I dug into the research.

“As I do for all my books, I turned to three main sources for infor­ma­tion: the library (for books, mag­a­zines, and news­pa­pers), the Inter­net (for jour­nal arti­cles and locat­ing experts in the field), and my own nature jour­nals. Some exam­ples in this book are based on my per­son­al obser­va­tions in the nat­ur­al world. Oth­ers come from inter­views with sci­en­tists as well as reports in schol­ar­ly books and sci­en­tif­ic journals.

“For me, research is the easy part of a project. The hard part is fig­ur­ing out the most inter­est­ing way to frame the mate­r­i­al. I’m always ask­ing myself, “Is there a way I can make this even more engag­ing?” For this book, I spent three years tin­ker­ing with the text. I wrote count­less drafts and did four com­plete over­hauls before I final­ly latched on to the idea of com­par­ing feath­ers to com­mon objects in our lives. That’s when the writ­ing came to life, and I knew the man­u­script was ready for my editor.”

Feathers Not Just for Flying

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Sarah S. Brannen

Charles­bridge, 2014

for ages 5 to 9

ISBN 978–1‑58089–430‑2 (HC)
ISBN 978–1‑58089–431‑9 (PB)

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Book Extensions

READERS THEATER
READ ALOUD GUIDE
TEACHER’S GUIDE
MIGRATION MATH ACTIVITY
DRAW A BIRD ACTIVITY

SIMILES VIDEO MINI-LESSON

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