The Class with Wings
by Paul Fleischman; illus. by Hannah Salyer
Primary    Cameron/Abrams    40 pp.
10/24    9781949480436    $18.99
e-book ed.  9798887073439    $17.09

In Ms. Lee’s class, students sit in darkness with their heads down on their desks, eyes closed, listening to recorded sounds of the rainforest. They imagine themselves as veeries, “sort of like robins but smaller.” Their teacher narrates the birds’ journey, starting in Brazil and ending in the class’s home of Wisconsin. One child, drawn into the lesson, narrates the quiet text, but Fleischman also provides glimpses into other students’ thoughts as they find parallels between the veeries’ story and their own lives. (The veery feels “jumpy and can’t sit still”; one child thinks, “That’s just what my mom said about me last night.”) They learn about the birds’ flight patterns, biology, and eating habits, as well as weather influences, human-made dangers, and threats from predators: “Schoolkids have bullies. Veeries have raptors. Except raptors eat you.” Students and teachers alike will be inspired by Ms. Lee and her compassionate approach to fostering curiosity and empathy through nature. Salyer, who gracefully depicts the birds soaring, captures both their movement and students’ imaginations with beguiling patterns in a palette of rich azure, warm teal, and eye-popping copper tones. In one striking spread, illustrating the veery’s night vision, a bird’s eye overlaps with a child’s, eyes closed, who thinks: “I have big, dark eyes, too.” Appended with notes about tracking migrations, paying attention to birds in one’s own neighborhood, and more.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.