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Maria Gianferrari has given us a book teaching us about hawks called Hawk Rising. In this picture book, Brian Floca, brings to life the story of Father Hawk and the young lady watching him. 
The images in this book, I liked them. Really. Brian Floca did an excellent job bringing the text to life. He showed us the world from two vantage points, one of the hawk, the other of a young girl watching him. Crashing through tree tops, or watching a hawk sitting up high searching. 
Maria Gianferrari writes out a story bringing to life one day in a life of a Father Hawk going about his business of providing for his family. Running into troubles along the way, but sticking with his objective throughout the day, feeding and caring for his family.
As he does this, he’s observed by a young gal and her mom. The back and forth between the two works.
Aesthetically the print is easy to read, a large nice font that if you wanted to read it to a group of children you could do so easily. It would be a good book to start off a study on hawks, or the food chain, or on how we can observe closely the world around us to learn much.
My thoughts:
I have to admit, I’m not sure what to think about this book. On the surface it seems okay, but by the time I was done reading my thought was “I would not want to read this to a young child”. It was a rather odd feeling so I asked a homeschool mom to read it as well and her reaction was “it’s a bit of a strange book, I wouldn’t want to read to a young child”.
There is much in this book that I do like.. the persistence in father hawk in caring for his young, the persistence of the young gal watching him. The care and determination displayed. So that lingering thing… I don’t really understand it. Ergo it’s a bit of a tough call. There’s nothing that says DON’T read this book. Nothing that hollers at me as being wrong or of false beliefs or anything, just this lingering lack of ease about it. I don’t know.
Hawk Rising
Maria Gianerrari
Brian Floca
Roaring Brook Press
40 pages, 4-8 years, softcover
Hawks, Science, picture book, Biology
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.
Where to Find Amazon.
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