Overview

Buzz, Ruby, and Their City Chicks is an illustrated and compelling nonfiction nature story for children ages 5 through 11. It recounts the saga of a widely watched pair of red-tailed hawks who raised and fledged three chicks from the fourth-floor ledge of an office building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010.

Enhanced by vibrant color illustrations derived from actual photos of the birds taken on site by four acclaimed wildlife photographers, this story captures a hawk family’s daily perils, while illustrating Buzz and Ruby’s impressive parenting skills. The pair’s hard work echoes the patience and cooperative behavior of human parenting as Buzz and Ruby feed their hungry chicks, shelter them from sun and storm, and entice them to leave the nest.

Buzz, Ruby, and Their City Chicks also features an update on Buzz and Ruby—and the challenges urban hawks face—written by Paul M. Roberts, hawk expert and the director of the Hawk Migration Association of North America. A final section, two pages of discussion questions entitled What’s the Buzz? encourages young readers to think more deeply about hawks and to compare hawk behaviors with those of humans and other inhabitants of the natural world.

With enormous appeal and educational value for elementary-school children, this story can be read aloud to children as young as 4 or 5. Older children will enjoy reading on their own, studying the vibrant illustrations, and delving into the discussion questions.

Read it. You, too, will soar with these majestic birds.