Sylvia and the Birds

Sylvia and the Birds: How the Bird Lady Saved Thousands of Birds, and How You Can Too! is an awesome book about Sylvia Hale, who is known as the bird lady because she saved thousands of birds in New Zealand! The book is divided into eight different sections, and each one tells us something new about Sylvia and her work.

This book is a graphic novel with other styles mixed in. It provides a lot of variety. Each section is very different. The first section is called “Sylvia’s Scrapbook.” It talks about Sylvia when she was a kid and shows old black-and-white photos of her. Sylvia’s life was really tough at first. Her mom left her mean dad and moved with Sylvia and her two brothers to Auckland. They lived with their grandparents for a while, but then they had to be put up for adoption because their grandparents couldn’t take care of them anymore. Sylvia lived with different foster families and played basketball. She eventually became a nurse. She stopped being a nurse when she got married and had lots of kids. When her husband left her, she worked at a dairy and then went back to being a nurse.

The next part is “Charlie Comes to Visit.” Charlie is another person who helps birds, just like Sylvia. He’s really good at rescuing penguins, so this section tells us about how he helps them and why it’s important.

“The Problem with Predators” explains how animals like rats, possums, stoats, and cats are hurting New Zealand’s native birds. These predators eat the birds’ eggs and sometimes even the birds themselves. Humans are predators too, which means we need to be careful about how we affect wildlife. This is really important because when we bring different animals and plants to a country that is not used to those things, it can have an effect on the ecosystem.

In “Te Ao Māori and Kaitiakitanga,” we learn about the Napier Port project. When they were expanding the port, they had to make sure the penguins living there were taken care of and found new homes. This part shows how important it is to think about wildlife when making big changes to the environment.

“Charlie’s Big Adventure” is about how Charlie helped native birds on an island near Hawaii. It’s cool to see how he made a difference even far away from New Zealand.

“How to Be a Backyard Bird Hero” gives tips on how we can help birds right in our own backyards. It tells us what to do if a bird flies into our house and how to put things on windows to stop birds from flying into them. It also explains what foods are good and bad for birds. It’s really interesting. We try to help birds at our house and it was interesting to learn a few things I didn’t know before.

The last part, “Activities,” is full of fun stuff like identifying birds from pictures and learning about different kinds of bird beaks. It’s a great way to learn more about birds and have fun at the same time.

My favourite part of the book is learning how we can help birds, like using window chalk to keep them safe. It’s a creative way to help birds and have fun too.

I really liked this book because it tells us not only how to help birds but also about people like Sylvia and Charlie who are doing amazing things for birds. I think this book is great for kids 10 and up, but younger kids might like it too if their parents read it to them.

- Kayla is 12 and lives in Hamilton.