Guest Post & Review: Crow Not Crow by Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple

Today we're honored to have author Jane Yolen guest posting about her new childrens book CROW NOT CROW!  And a quick fun fact, Jane is the author that inspired a love of reading for our Macy Kate through her childrens book How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? 

📚 Welcome to I'd So Rather Be Reading, Jane! 📚

CROW NOT CROW began many years ago when my son Adam Stemple taught his girlfriend Betsy (soon to be wife) how to bird. Adam had been taught birding as a child by his father (the original Pa in my book OWL MOON.) But Betsy was a city girl—like me—though her city was Minneapolis and mine had been New York.

We had both needed help seeing birds as something more than pigeons.

So Adam invented a method he called “Crow Not Crow” by which he taught Betsy to bird.

Years later, when Adam was already a published author, and he and Betsy had two children, I said, “You should write that as a picture book.” He said, “I don’t know how to write picture books.” But he’d already had two solo adult novels published, 10 music books (with me) published, six middle grade novels (with me) plus published, poems and short stories. And dozens upon dozens of songs and song lyrics.

“We'll do it together,” I said.

And we did.

                                                                                                            🐦 Jane

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Summary: Tells the story of a child's first birding expedition on a golden autumn day.

Release Date: August 2018
Age Group: Childrens, Family, STEM, Picture
Source: Review Copy from Publisher
Reviewed By: Nat


Review:
I love gardening, flowers and birds... I kill 75% of what I garden. I buy WAY to many flowers from Hobby Lobby. And there are only two birds that I feel confident in identifying: a hummingbird and a crow.

Crow Not Crow was a sweet, simple introduction to the world of birding through the endearing perspective of a father-daughter outing.The simplicity and joy of identifying birds in nature was just great. I loved Crow Not Crow as a mother, as a birding novice and as a teacher.

This is the perfect book to use for a STEM science lesson for the classroom or even as an interactive library lesson for small group discussions. Once you finish the story, the last 5 pages are filled with bird facts and QR codes!

There are two QR codes for each bird discussed. One takes you to specific bird facts and another plays the call of the bird. It's really neat and exciting to listen to the different sounds and connect the image of the bird to the sound.

Highly recommend for ages 4-7. And I will be donating my copy to my sons' school library!