Sun Bird: The Amazing Journey of the Arctic Tern
by Lindsay Moore; illus. by the author
Primary    Greenwillow    40 pp.
2/25    9780063061002    $19.99

Summer in the northern polar regions finds a pair of Arctic terns caring for their two newly hatched chicks. In lushly illustrated landscapes of sea, ice, rock, and sky, they catch fish and fend off ravens, foxes, and polar bears. By fall, the young birds are strong enough to “follow the sun” thousands of miles south, all the way to the Antarctic, on the longest known migration journey of any animal on Earth. Moore’s poetic lines, just a few on most pages, include essential scientific details about the terns (“With bodies home / to hollow bones, / and wings like sails, / they soar on the wind”) and other animals they meet on their travels. Some of these encounters, as with a fish-stealing skua, are perilous, while others, as with the minke whale, are peaceful. Moore’s delicate watercolors are a marvel of animals in motion: soaring, diving, bobbing, reaching, schooling. Some are solo close-ups; others convey the awesome sight of multiple birds in flight. Back matter provides more information about the terns’ amazing twice-a-year journey.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.