Customer Reviews

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award (Awards))

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

An exceptionally well documented and highly readable book about the ivory billed woodpecker. Though the reader knows how the book will end, one becomes so attached to this bird that when the last bird's home has been destroyed the reader has a true understanding of the word extinct. Don't miss this one.

Originally designed and published as a children's book for teenage readers, Philip Hoose's The Race To Save The Lord God Bird is also confidently recommended an ideal introduction for an adult readership as a very highly recommended survey of the process of extinction and changing attitudes towards understanding and protecting species and habitats. From James J. Audubon's early efforts to the plume wars to early collectors of birds, The Race To Save The Lord God Bird documents the ravaging of the bird world around the turn of the century - and the slow realizations of bird extinction processes which evolved from there.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?

"Before white settlement, more than one-quarter of all the birds in what is now the United States were Passenger Pigeons. They were so abundant that in 1810 Alexander Wilson saw a flock pass overhead that was a mile wide and 240 miles long, containing over two billion birds. That flock could have stretched nearly twenty-three times around the equator. Passenger Pigeons were pretty and brown, with small grayish heads, barrel chests, and long, tapered wings that sent them through the sky at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour.
"But they had two problems: they were good to eat and they destroyed crops by eating seeds. Farmers not only shot them, but also cast huge nets over fields to trap them by the thousands. It took only a few decades to wipe out what may have been the most plentiful bird ever to live on the earth. A fourteen-year-old boy named Press Clay Southworth shot the last wild Passenger Pigeon in 1900. The species became extinct in 1914, when Martha, the last captive pigeon, died quietly in the Cincinnati Zoo."

You know those arcade games with a steering wheel and a gas pedal? (There never seems to be a brake pedal on those things.) Well, sometimes the world feels to me just like one of those babies, careening along full speed, sound effects and all, with all of us just trying to hold on and not send anyone or anything flying off the road. And then there are also those times it feels like I'm out there on that animated road like a deer in the headlights, waving my arms with all those crazy drivers blindly bearing down on me.

"Humans now use up more than half of the world's fresh water and nearly half of everything that's grown on land."

Back in 1960, when there were around 177 million people in the United States, I was growing up in Plainview, L.I., which was then the eastern terminus of the Long Island Expressway. I'd sometimes go kite flying in the pasture of a nearby cow dairy. (Yes, cow dairies in Plainview.)

In 1970, when the US was up past the 200 million people mark, my parents loaded us in the car for a drive to Florida to see the piece of investment property they'd bought in the middle of nowhere. That nowhere is now the city of Naples, Florida, and the swamps and grassy plains I saw there in 1970 are now nowhere.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker must have been one heck of a bird. Big, noisy, powerful, and fierce, it once existed all over what is now the US South, and its plumage and/or head was prized by Native Americans for decoration and as an amulet. Indians from the North would offer much in trade for their own specimens. Once the white boys arrived, they too killed the Ivory-billed because of the big bucks involved. THE RACE TO SAVE THE LORD GOD BIRD utilizes the story of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker as the centerpiece for a fascinating and vital history that portrays the long and belated evolution of the "bird lovers," from the guys who loved them, shot them by the dozen, and sold them to collectors the world over, to the first modern ecologists who arose in the 1930s. Trying, at that point, to solve the mysteries of how the Ivory-billed fit into its environment, and whether there was a way to save the handful that still then existed, we read of the heroic determination by a few to prolong the life on earth of what many once called "that Lord God bird."

From James Audubon to the Audubon Society and beyond, THE RACE TO SAVE THE LORD GOD BIRD is as thrilling and as scary in its consequences as one of those arcade games. And, sadly, some of the corporate characters we meet treated the birds' survival as if it were a game. The story brings us to Jim Tanner, a man of my grandfather's generation, who spent years amid mosquitos and snakes, studying the world's remaining handful of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. All living by that time in a single, last chunk of virgin riverbottom woods in Louisiana that was owned by the Singer sewing machine company, Tanner became the only person to ever band an Ivory-billed. His 1937 photos of that feisty young chick, which they came in contact with while its parents hunted for food and which they named Sonny Boy, show the proud young bird strutting atop his partner's hat. Returning to the Audubon society with the photos and a plea for immediate action, Tanner was singularly responsible for the Society's last ditch effort to save the Ivory-billed.

It is ironic that that last ditch effort was ended by a war. A self-proclaimed money grubbing corporation, utilizing imported Nazi POWs as cheap replacement labor, deliberately destroyed that last stand of Ivory-billed habitat before it could be saved. Now, as this powerful and sure-to-be-an-award-winning book comes to press, as thousands of species continue to become extinct every year, it is ever so hard to concentrate on such abstract issues as the pending extinction of some rare bird or bug. The economy has been crappy for years, so many have no health care, and we're all focused on photos of what soldiers are doing to prisoners for the sake of democracy. There isn't much brain room for nature.

But as the US population inexorably marches toward the 300 million mark--twice what it was when I was born a half-century ago--it is essential for today's young adults to begin considering what kind of world they want to spend their lives in. THE RACE TO SAVE THE LORD GOD BIRD illuminates the kind of important decisions that must be made, where making the wrong decision--or even no decision--will bring about irrevocable results for the planet.

Phil Hoose is a stunning storyteller. From his descriptions of the Native Americans who wore the heads of this woodpecker around their neck in hopes of "drilling holes through their enemies" to the collectors of the 1800's who shot the bird in the 100's to mount in their home-spun museums to the ornithologists who struggled through endless swamp land just to photograph this beautiful bird--Hoose captures not only the magnificence of this bird, but America's mad march towards progress and the sacrifices we made. You need not be a birder to be captured by this brilliant weaving of ecology and history. Despite the ivory bill woodpecker's apparent extinction from the US swamps, this is not a hopeless story, by any means. The fight to save the Lord God Bird taught us innumerable lessons about habitat, preservation and reverence. A compelling read for ANYONE over age 11.

I take exception to the reviewer who said this book was a ripoff. "The Race to Save the Lord God Bird" is an excellent children's book, and it's not fair to judge it side-by-side with books written for adults. I thought Mr. Hoose's earlier book "It's our World, Too!" is a classic, and "Hey, Little Ant" was one of my daughter's favorite books in kindergarten. Ivory-bill enthusiasts will also enjoy "In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker" by Jerome Jackson, a dedicated scientist who refused against all odds to declare this species extinct. I recommend it.

I am a children's book professional who consults with schools & libraries and, as such, I read hundreds of new books every year. It is no small compliment, then, when I say that The Race to Save the Lord God Bird ranks as one of the best-written, most insightful non-fiction books I have EVER had the pleasure of reading! Who knew that a book about one bird species could be such a captivating page-turner?

Lest you non-birders think that this book is not for you, I'll mention that my interest in the Ivory-billed woodpecker was merely a passing one until I picked up this book, at the urging of several colleagues. Phillip Hoose's remarkable accounting for the life of this one species has since turned that "passing interest" into a passion, compelling me to put this book into the hands of friends, family members, teachers, librarians, and anyone who's expressed even the slightest interest in things science- or history-related.

And NOW, with the announcement that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been rediscovered, I feel wonderfully grateful to Phillip Hoose for having given so many of us such deep insight into WHY this re-discovery is truly remarkable news! It should be made clear that Hoose's book does not include information about the recent Ivory-billed sightings in Arkansas, because it was published well before the re-discovery was announced. But what The Race to Save the Lord God Bird does include is perhaps even more important -- a wonderfully clear depiction of how we came to "lose" this magnificent bird in the first place and an understanding of the mistakes we cannot allow ourselves to make again.

Do not dismiss this as being a book for "children," as it is anything but. It is a book for EVERYONE, and everyone you give it to will be thanking you for putting it into their hands.

I thought that this book was well written, reasearched, and thought through. But as a 12 year old I didn't enjoy it quite as much as i think an older person would. I think that the author wrote the stories well, and made them very drawing. This book was not one of my favorite books, partially because it was very hard to read. The other reason was beause to me it was a bit confusing. I could see him doing a kids version of the same book, but making it a bit simpler or shorter. I thought that the author did a great job in writing this book, but I think you should wait to read it until you are a bit older. Some people I know thought it was a great book, but they're older than me. So again I thought that this was an o.k. book, but not a great kid's read.

Phillip Hoose's beautiful book tells the story of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker in such an engaging, heartfelt manner that it is impossible to put down. His text reflects meticulous research and a genuine passion for his subject. Hoose's lively writing brings to life a bird that has until recently been considered all but extinct.

Although the book was written prior to the recent rediscovery of the woodpecker, it is nonetheless a wonderful resource for learning the history of this remarkable bird. Knowing the full story behind the woodpecker's disappearance enhances the excitement of the its rediscovery immeasurably.

The book is written for young adults, but it is more than sophisticated enough in language and appearance to appeal to adults as well. I would recommend The Race to Save the Lord God Bird to anyone who loves books, loves birds, or has had their curiosity sparked by the story of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

When I first read The Race to Save Lord God Bird in the summer of 2004, I wept. Even though the author opened his account by stating quite clearly that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was extinct, his passion in describing both the magnificence of the bird itself and the extraordinary efforts to save it of James Tanner and his team of ornithologists made me grit my teeth and hope against hope that somehow they'd be able to pull it off. No novelist could equal the poignance of the last days of the Ivory-bill as Audubon painter Don Eckelberry painted and sketched so there would be a record for future generations. Had I not been introduced to the Ivory-bill so thoroughly and with such power, I would not have been able to appreciate fully the recent miracle of the bird's rediscovery. Phil Hoose has written a work of surpassing excellence that, combined with the astounding news of the survival of the Lord God Bird, can only stand as the most powerful argument possible for habitat conservation. That the book's ending does not incorporate recent events does nothing to diminish this argument or its impact--it will just make readers all the more thrilled at this new, happy ending.

Hoose presents a beautifully written, thoroughly documented account of the demise of the Ivory Bill. Stunning photographs accompany a text that will appeal to both adult and young readers. Given the recent headlines heralding the rediscovery of the bird in Arkansas (April 2005), the book is that much more satisfying!