Coral Vass (text) and Jess Racklyeft (illustrator), The forgotten song: Saving the regent honeyeater, CSIRO Publishing, April 2023, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781486316403
The CSIRO’s information picture books are usually really good and this one is no exception. It tells the story of a young male regent honeyeater that cannot attract a mate because there are no other regent honeyeaters nearby to teach him the mating call he needs to attract a female.
He tries to imitate a friarbird, then a currawong and finally a rosella but all his attempts fail. It is a park ranger who comes to the rescue, attaching a box to a scribbly gum. A lovely song is coming from the box and Regent is able to copy it perfectly, attracting a mate as a result.
Information pages at the end of the book give facts about the species and its distribution and a timeline of their decline in numbers. It is also explains that researchers teach captive-bred birds the right song before releasing them back into the wild.
The text by Coral Vass is well-written with interesting and varied vocabulary and some excellent repetition as the narrative moves along. Jess Racklyeft’s colourful illustrations include some collage with excerpts from historical photographs.
This is a very good non-fiction picture book to introduce young readers to some of the efforts used by scientists to preserve and restore numbers of endangered bird species.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
