The pictures are pretty, but the rhymed poetry is strained, and the science is wrong. ?�Fledglings would have hatched and feathered out in the north, in the summer, so that the young would be able to fly south. ?áAnd they were never common enough to 'count all day.' ?áAnd I?ácould not find evidence of them 'playing' with their food (though one video comment claims to see a sandhill crane playing with its food, so I guess it's possible). ?áThe book presents as educational, but has no endnotes, no recommendations for further reading.... ?áUnfortunate.
For more information, one good source is:?áhttp://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/birds/whooping-crane/faq/
And here's a slideshow of their annual cycle:?áhttp://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/crane/sl/33_annual/index.html" ( )

Song for the Whooping Crane is a beautifully written book that is a poetic celebration of one of the rarest birds in North America. In this book, we follow the Whooping Crane birds through their journey from the beginning to the end. The story takes us to where the birds fly, what they eat, and even where they might sleep. The illustrations fit really well with the story. I felt like the author used concrete language when describing each page. Doing so helps the readers create images of what the author is referring to. For example, “By night, when stones reflect the scattered stars and dark falls deep, the whooping cranes wade into shallow poos and go to sleep.” I also feel like concise language is also being used because the author uses as little words as possible to describe this rare Whooping Crane. ( )

This book goes on a journey of a whooping crane while they migrate. A very animated book that covers a whooping crane's behavior with poetry. ( )

This book is about Whooping Cranes and what they typically do in a day and throughout the seasons. This includes such things as them now being rare in America, that they fly south, what they fly over (marshes), how they fly, how they look for food, and finally how they dance by moving their bodies different ways.
Critique (Genre)- This is a good example of realistic fiction because whooping cranes do all of these things mentioned in the book either during the day or throughout the year. The are realistic animals that can actually be seen today as depicted by this book.
Critique (Setting)- This is a good example of a background setting because the author only mentioned the fact that these cranes live in North America. There was not a lot of descriptive language that would point to a certain place or time where this book was taking place. Thus, it can be read throughout generations and still make sense and be accurate as long as these birds are not extinct.

This whole book is about cranes and how they migrate, eat, and dance. The author decribes the cranes in some detail and you get the feeling that they are way more than just birds, but symbolize and bring happiness when they are around. ( )