Sarah Speedie (text) and Cindy Lane (illustrator) The Great Dawn Choir, CSIRO Publishing, August 2025, 32 pp., RRP $26.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781486318339
This narrative information picture book, for readers aged 5 to 9, is about some of the native Australian birds who make up the dawn chorus. Using rhyming quatrains, the reader meets the birds one by one: magpie, sulphur-crested cockatoo, rainbow lorikeet, lyrebird, kookaburra, fairy-wren, raven and crested pigeon. Cindy Lane’s illustrations are accurate and frequently dramatic on the page, with the birds embedded in their usual environments.
The book gives the reader the opportunity to learn more about the role and importance of the dawn chorus as well as about each of the birds. The end papers include lots of different feathers but there isn’t a guide included. This would make a great research topic in the classroom, or at home. Within the illustrations are birds which don’t add to the morning calls, which could be fun for young readers to spot.
If used in the classroom, the book covers Science, English, The Arts and Sustainability. The CSIRO has made teaching notes available at their website.
Reviewed by Maureen Mann
