Lottie Loves Nature: Bird Alert

Jane Clarke’s series, prettily illustrated by James Brown, is an effective mix of fiction and facts. Young Lottie is inspired by TV wildlife presenter Samira Breeze to find out everything she can about wildlife and care for the creatures that visit her garden. In this episode, she’s bird spotting, parrot Nacho on her shoulder. She has to contend with next-door neighbour Mr Parfitt, who is the story’s figure of fun, but spots lots of wild birds, amongst them some fledgling sparrows. Her friend Noah helps and her brother Al, who incidentally stars in his own series, and there’s more than enough plot and comedy to keep children reading. Every so often too, we are presented with an illustrated page from Lottie’s nature notebook and these are full of information about birds and also about things that children can do to attract them into their own gardens. It’s a book to encourage learning and curiosity and to prompt fun and possible lifetime interests too.

Read our Q&A interview with Jane Clarke.