Title: The Bird Book: Alma’s Story Revisited
Author: Patsy Levang
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-4931-5699-3
Genre: Educational / Nature / Memoirs
Pages: 58
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Read Book Review

In the opening pages of The Bird Book: Alma’s Story Revisited, author Patsy Levang introduces us to some remarkable people, all rooted in the early 1900s in rural America. The bonds and personalities of these robust individuals revolved around faith, friends and family. The few pages of this opening read as a biographical memoir, paying homage and with the purpose of Patsy Levang taking the work of the late Alma and completing the compiling of information for this edition on the many types and species of birds.

The Bird Book immediately progresses into a Cyclopedia format of identifying a hundred or so species of birds. Each page has some similar components; the name of the type of bird, its habitat and characteristics, then Alma’s comments on her observations about how the bird made an impact on her. A pencil, or colored pencil drawing of each of the birds is also elegantly displayed, as one would imagine how a naturalist would draw it into their field diary. The book ends with an index for quick reference back to any of the species of birds for those readers who are committing this information to memory.

As a bird lover extraordinaire, Alma has taken a life-long’s interest in compiling this work of information, much of which Levang acknowledges has roots from other sources and authors, mentioned at the end of the book. The capitulation of names, information, observations along with the detailed drawing of each type of bird makes The Bird Book exactly what the title suggests.

The Bird Book would be an ideal gift to those members of the Audubon Bird Society, sold in their gift shop, or simply outdoors loving people wishing to know more about the members of the environment which surround us. As nowadays, the “tweet” is associated with social media of the Internet, it is refreshing to page a book with more the characteristics such as one would see in the works Charles Darwin, bringing forth to others, the amazing subtle differences of various type of birds which have more in common with other types of birds than differences. Alma must have had the patience of a Saint to spend countless hours, culminating in years of research, in her observations of God’s creatures in which many of us may unfortunately take for granted.

I believe it would be best to have a printed copy format of The Bird Book: Alma’s Story Revisited to be used as a reference guide, and brought along in the backpack of bird watchers, so they can identify what their binoculars are perhaps viewing, making for an enjoyable and educational outing.