The Little Book of Garden Bird Songs

There seem to be few garden bird books available for very young children, so when this board book came along targeted at age 3 and above I was intrigued to see what it had to offer. It covers 12 garden bird species that most people will encounter in their garden including Great Tit, Greenfinch and Carrion Crow. Each bird has a double page with illustrations and facts including where they are found, what they eat, where they nest and a ‘Did you know’. Down the side of the book are sound buttons corresponding to each species’ song, operated by battery, and consisting of good quality recordings. This is a book that, in fact, could appeal to all ages. The pictures and sounds are great for a young child to learn from, and the facts and descriptions will engage older children. It would also be suitable as a basic book for adults wanting to learn more about gardens birds, giving them the ability to start understanding basic birdsong, or even better – a good opportunity for an adult to spend time with a child, learning together. Clare Simm

Being the son of the Fat Birder has its perks, being the granddaughter and namesake has even more, so when the little lady saw The Little Book of Garden Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington & Caz Buckingham, we made a quick call to the old man and got him to arrange a review copy for us, well birds and our family go hand in hand so we had to really.

Proof that you’re never too old for push-button sound books, this delightful volume helps you get to know the voices in your garden. Pairing 12 different audio recordings with oft-seen garden birds illustrated in fine and quite lovely detail, it includes informative profiles and surprising facts. Fun for all the family.

Take a well-put-together board book (don’t worry about it being a board book – no one is going to say that they’re a bit too old for a board book once they see it), add exquisite pictures of a dozen birds – one on each double-page spread – and then fill in the details. You’ll need the name of the bird in English and Latin and a description of the bird in words which a child can understand but which won’t patronise an adult. Then you’ll need details of where the bird is found, what it eats, where it nests, how many eggs it lays, how the male and female adults differ and their size. Then you need a ‘Did you know?’ fact and this needs to be something which will interest children, but which adults might not know either. Does it sound simple? Well it isn’t, but ‘The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs’ does it perfectly. And there’s a bonus, but I’ll tell you about that in a moment.

The Little Book of Garden Bird Songs by Caz Buckingham and Andrea Pinnington brings the calming tweets of your favourite garden birds into your home, teaching you the common calls of the robin, chaffinch and even blue tit. Perfect to encourage little ones to learn about their feathered friends, the book comes with 12 different bird song recordings to accompany detailed imagery and facts about each beautiful bird. Find out which yellow and blue bird can lay up to 12 speckled eggs at a time, which bird has a different accent according to where they are from and which glorious green creature has a beak perfectly shaped for cracking open nuts and seeds. A colourful and engaging book, The Little Book of Garden Bird Songs is a fun way to learn about the sounds of your garden.