Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story
by Carol Joy Munro; illus. by Chelsea O’Byrne
Primary    Minerva/Astra    40 pp.
12/24    9781662651212    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781662651229    $11.99

This moving tale of two storks begins when one of them, Katerina, who narrates the story, is shot from the sky and falls to the fields below. A farmer and a young girl carry her away to tend her wounds while her mate, Luka, remains just outside their farmhouse, keeping watch. Cold creeps in, and Luka must migrate with the others while Katerina stays behind. With time to heal as the seasons change, Katerina gains strength to build a nest and, at long last, welcomes Luka back from his journey. They raise chicks together through the summer months until winter weather resumes. Though Katerina’s wings can no longer endure long flights, Luka and their chicks promise to return “when the magnolias bloom,” beginning the decades-long annual rhythm of the real birds who inspired the story. O’Byrne’s folk art–style illustrations center the stark white, black, and orange-beaked bodies of the storks against a colorful patchwork landscape of farmland. Her simple forms rendered in chalk pastel, colored pencil, and digital pencil manage to convey a range of emotions via the storks’ open beaks, curved necks, and black-lined eyes. This affecting story demonstrates the devotion between two animals and the distance they overcome together, and could easily light a spark in a young animal lover’s heart. Back matter gives information about the two birds behind the book and brief facts about other birds met along the way.

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.