SI624fall09, birds, Audubon Society, Boston, Massachusetts, history, activism, picture book, elementary, juvenile ( )

This is an informational historical fiction book. The artwork in the book is hand-drawn and oil painted. It has funny pictures and is very colorful. The pictures really made me want to keep reading the book. It is about two ladies who decide that something should be done about killing birds to be used for hats. First of all, they think it looks silly, and second, they are killing birds that one day may become endangered. They finally get a law passed and won their case. I think the reading level is either fifth or sixth grade because the content was moderately difficult. There were many words per page and most of the words are tier 2 words. The curricular connections are: birds, women, American activists, Boston, and social progress. ( )

This book was the original creation of the The Massachusetts Audubon Society. Back then women would wear dead birds on their hats which they wore on their heads. The fashion was killing birds and was also killing women's right to vote and be listened to. There were two characters Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall that helped persuad other women to stop killing the birds and then maybe women could be viewed more seriously in society's eyes.

I liked this story because it shows links of the elimiating the dead bird hats with women's suffrage. This was a time when women were not taking seriously, nor were they totatly respected. I enjoyed this book because it the person against society view. It shows that when people work together and communicate that it is possible to overcome the odds.

I think this book should be read to later primary grades. Talk to the students about how women were viewed in society and how men were the dominating species. It is also important to discuss what other groups faced ridicule based on their sex or ethnicity.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4? In an amusing picture-book format, Lasky tells the story of two strong-willed women who started the Audubon Society in Massachusetts around the turn of the century. When wearing dead birds as hat decorations became a raging fashion, Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall were outraged. They contacted other ladies of fashion to start a club, named it after John James Audubon, and began the Bird Hat Campaign. The bird hats and their wearers look ridiculous, just as the cousins claim. The exaggerated expressions and postures of Catrow's figures bring humor to every page, but the serious business of political action comes through just the same. Lasky neatly includes the varied strategies that the women employed to achieve their purpose. Though equally determined, Harriet and Minna have distinctly different personalities. Most, but not all, of the incidents are based on actual events, which the author's note clearly explains. Like Rhoda Blumberg's Bloomers! (Bradbury, 1993), Lasky's title will entertain young readers while offering them a fascinating and little-known slice of history.?Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The true story of two very well bred Boston ladies who formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society in the 1890s and started the Bird Hat Campaign in order to protect birds and stop people from using them to adorn women's hats. They enlisted the help of many people, including children, who became junior members of the Audubon Society, and farmers and politicians -- and laws were eventually passed protecting birds. ( )