Read, Read, Read, said the Baby: Curious about Birds by Cathryn Sill, illustrated by John Sill

I love the Sill's About series. The beautiful, detailed paintings, the simple informational text, but I had mixed feelings when I saw they were branching out into board books. I wondered how that would work - wouldn't the pictures be too small? The detail too fine? What would they do with the thumbnails and additional information at the back? I decided to wait and see and, happily Peachtree sent me a review copy to test. Spoiler alert: It's awesome!

Each page is a close-up painting of a bird, in bright and exquisite detail. The text of the original picture book is simplified slightly to statements that correspond to the birds. "Some birds are small" features a ruby-throated hummingbird (yes, the pictures are captioned!) in a field of flowers. "Some birds eat plants" shows a rainbow lorikeet pecking at fruit. The last sentence says "Birds... are important to our world."

While this is not the ideal book for actual infants, it's a great choice for toddlers who can see well enough to recognize different colors and shapes and preschoolers who are interested in identifying different birds they might see in their backyard. The pictures have extensive detail, but they are shown large enough that even little ones whose eyes are not developed enough to pick out detail can get the general arrangement of birds and plants.

Verdict: This is a lovely book to introduce small children to the natural world and I look forward eagerly to the next board book edition in this series, Curious about mammals.

ISBN: 9781682631904; Published March 2020 by Peachtree; Review copy provided by the publisher; Donated to the library