The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe

  “Hope is the thing with feathers,” wrote the poet Emily Dickinson. Humans have long seen birds as symbols of hope, peace, beauty, and freedom. Far from giving up the fight to save them and their habitats, scientists and conservationists young and old are working with great urgency. We can all do our part. While few of us will go on expeditions like Dr. Londonderry’s, all of us can, like Loah, nurture the places and people we love.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS

  Attenborough, David. The Life of Birds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.

  Schomp, Virginia. 24 Hours on the Tundra (A Day in an Ecosystem). New York: Cavendish Square Publishing, 2012.

  Stemple, Heidi E. Y. Counting Birds: The Idea That Helped Save Our Feathered Friends. Illustrated by Clover Robin. Lake Forest, CA: Seagrass Press, 2018.

  Thompson, Bill, III. The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of North America. Peterson Field Guides. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

  FILMS

  Attenborough, David. The Life of Birds. Ten-part BBC/PBS series. 1998.

  Collardy, Samuel. Arctic Boyhood. A short documentary about an eight-year-old boy living in the village of Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland, 1998. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_vBbw0FrGs.

  WEBSITES

  eBird. A project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with a mobile app that lets you track your own sightings and compare with birders around the world. www.ebird.com.

  National Audubon Society. Wonderful photos, up-to-the-minute facts about conservation, and tips on how to observe and protect birds in your own neighborhood. www.audubon.org.

  World Wildlife Fund. Information about conservation efforts around the globe. www.worldwildlife.org.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Deepest thanks to my beloved agent, Sarah Davies, who’s helped me hatch many a book, and to my wonderful editor, Margaret Ferguson, who gave this story its wings. Gratitude to Paul Sweet of the American Museum of Natural History for sharing his extensive knowledge of ornithology, and to copyeditor Janet Renard for dealing with the names of species and places both real and fictional. Many thanks to my brilliant flock of writer friends, especially Mary Grimm, Susan Grimm, Mary Norris, and Kris Ohlson. To all the generous, creative, tireless educators and librarians who work to connect kids and books: if I were a meadowlark, I would sing you my sweetest song! As always, to those who share my nest through good times and hard, I owe you everything.