ROBINS! HOW THEY GROW UP
Written and illustrated by Eileen Christelow Clarion Books, 48 pp., ages 6-9
With wit and exuberance, Eileen Christelow narrates the lives of a family of robins, from their trip up north to roost in a shed through the laying of their eggs and the molting of their young.
Robins! ( is stuffed with information, much of it fascinating and likely to be a surprise even to adult readers. (In two weeks, a baby robin will eat 14 feet worth of worms!) Christelow made the inspired choice to have this potentially dense non-fiction described by two chatty robin teenagers looking back over their childhood (“First, let’s tell about Dad’s long trip. / You mean before we were born?”), allowing this book to manage the rare trick of being both approachable and rigorous. Robins! doesn’t shy away from harsh realities — the clutch of four eggs leads to only two surviving fledglings — but that honesty will appeal to the young naturalist who prefers nature unvarnished.