Customer Reviews

City Hawk: The Story of Pale Male

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City Hawk is a wonderful story about a real-life red-tailed hawk that decides to make New York City his home. The illustrations are charming and give an accurate picture of what life for a city hawk is really like. This book will appeal to both children and adults, especially those who live in New York and want to know more about their fellow resident, Pale Male.

My 17-mo son really enjoys this book. He's learned the word "hawk" and the names Pale Male (he gets confused now when the mail comes) and Lola. I started singing "Lola, she was a show girl" to him when we talked about Lola, and eventually played him a recording of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." Now when I get to the part of the story where Lola comes in he starts dancing around because he rememebers the song. My husband liked the historical background on Central Park from the back of the book. Apparently Lola and Pale Male are over in real life, but they'll always be my NYC red-tailed hawk "It couple" thanks to this book.

This fresh, exciting, and informative story would be a great choice for a child's or classroom's first nonfiction book. Illustrations are vivid and easy to relate to, and the text - complex enough for competent early readers, but perfect for a read-aloud - is engaging. City Hawk tells the true story of a pair of hawks who unexpectedly and uncharacteristically nest and rear their young outside the window of a Central Park apartment. One thing I really like about this is that the author does not anthropomorphize the birds and their plight, but lets the reader follow their story as if they were bird-watching along with the NYC regulars. A portion of the sales of this book go towards the Audubon Society's NYC chapter and helps "support protection of wild birds and habitat in the five boroughs."

Excellent story with historical value . I bought it for my grand son who lives in NYC .Highly recommend