“Feathers Together” and “Polar Bear” are portals into the joys and hardships of migratory animals’ lives.
From “Polar Bear.” Credit...Eric Rohmann
Excerpt from this New York Times story:
To perceive the world through another’s eyes is a profound act of empathy; to do so through the eyes of an animal is an even greater feat of research and imagination. The creators of two new picture books succeed splendidly in this endeavor, shaping realistic narratives that take readers into migratory animals’ lives, where survival depends on highly developed senses, instincts and relationships.
Early in Candace Fleming’s POLAR BEAR (Neal Porter/Holiday House, 32 pp., $18.99, ages 4 to 8), we see the tip of the mother polar bear’s black nose poking out from the den near Canada’s Hudson Bay where she has given birth to two cubs and fasted for five months. As she exits the den, she sniffs the spring air for safety before inviting her cubs outside.
Following one family’s yearlong journey to find food and return home, “Polar Bear” is both a paean to a swiftly changing Arctic habitat and a deeply affecting story about fierce mother love.
Their third book, FEATHERS TOGETHER (Abrams, 40 pp., $18.99, ages 4 to 8), was inspired by the stork mates Malena and Klepetan, two birds who for 19 years spent every spring and summer together in Croatia — where they birthed and raised 66 fledglings — and were separated every fall and winter, when Klepetan migrated to South Africa, a journey Malena wasn’t able to make because her wing had been injured by a poacher and she couldn’t fly.
In Levis and Santoso’s version of their story, a “feather-headed man” (revealed in the author’s note to be a school custodian named Stjepan Vokic) fashions a ramp for Malena that leads to a nest on top of his house. There the two storks share stories and stargaze. When the temperature drops, they know it’s time for Klepetan to fly south. Anger and sadness give way to their eponymous rallying cry, a declaration of partnership: “Feathers together!” The man assures them that “friendship survives all kinds of goodbyes.”