Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City

Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City
by Janet Schulman
Alfred A. Knopf
unpaged

A red tail hawk and his mate build their nest near the top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building and bird watchers gather hoping to see the chicks in the nest.

9 comments:

Teresa said...

Aren't I awful? All I can think is "another book about this?" I will read it without comparing it to the other two. I promise.

Kris said...

Somehow I went through last year's Mock Sibert election without reading the Pale Male books. I liked this one, especially the way illustrator highlighted with bright colors the living things in NY -- the trees, wildlife, people, etc. It's a great contrast against the grays and browns of the buildings.

Teresa said...

The book is fine. Not my pick for our mock award.

Unknown said...

I really like the choice of contrasting colors that the illustrator chose. It is very beastiful.
I liked how the story followed this hawk and talked about him as he grew and how the people of New York liked to watch these birds, however, there were other books on the Sibert list that I liked better than this book.

Anonymous said...

This is a great book. I've never heard of Pale Male before but it is fascinating to see the contrast from the wild animal to the big city. The illustrations are wonderful. The author did a great job of telling the true story of Pale Male without it seeming like a bunch of facts.

Marian said...

This is a lovely book.
Since the illustrator is not a citizens or residents of the United States, I wondered if the author is still eligible for the Sibert award?

The award is restricted to authors, author/illustrator, co-authors, or author and illustrator named on the title page who are citizens or residents of the United States.

Anonymous said...

I had never heard the story of this hawk before, so it was new to me. I thought the story was fun and interesting, and something unexpected. It told the facts about Pale Male in a way that made his story seem so fascinating. I think that elementary students would be very interested in this book. It tells about the hawk in a way that gives it almost human-like attributes, which I think that kids would love. It would be great to use as part of a unit on unusual and unexpected heroes.

art4jewel said...

Pale Male was surprisingly interesting. I wasn't sure what to expect based on the title and the cover, but the story that was inside was great. I especially loved how hard the people of New York fought for Pale Male and his family to remain a part of their community.
Even though it wasn't my favorite, this story would be very inspiring for young children to hear or read.

Jana said...

After seeing this bird's story on PBS I have to say that I still find this story to be very interesting. The author does a wonderful job of describing the bird's life in detail. I don't know if I would choose it to win the award. It seems like the book would be a great Reading Rainbow book.
Elementary students would find this book to be interesting. I agree with Amber. The author does give the bird human-like traits as it becomes a true New Yorker. This would be a great book to use when doing a writing lesson about word choice.