Bird Stories

These are gentle, old-fashioned stories that treat birds not as subjects of study but as neighbors. Patch, an entomologist who became the first woman president of the Entomological Society of America, wrote these tales with a scientist's observation and a storyteller's heart. The collection opens with Chick, D.D., a small black-capped bird whose Christmas coincides with an ice storm that covers the forest in white. Hungry and cheerful despite the hardship, Chick eventually discovers a gift of suet left by a Farmer Boy, revealing the quiet kindness possible between humans and wild creatures. The stories that follow continue this theme of gentle coexistence, each bird a distinct character navigating the rhythms of forest life. This is a book that asks its young readers to look closer, to notice the small dramas unfolding in branches and nests, to develop what Patch clearly possessed: genuine reverence for the living world.