Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95

B95 can feel it: a stirring in his bones and feathers. It's time. Today is the day he will once again cast himself into the air, spiral upward into the clouds, and bank into the wind.

He wears a black band on his lower right leg and an orange flag on his upper left, bearing the laser inscription B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this gritty, four-ounce marathoner has flown the distance to the moon--and halfway back

B95 is a robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, nine thousand miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey.

B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at ancient refueling stations along his migratory circuit--changes caused mostly by human activity--have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach. And so, since 1995, when B95 was first captured and banded, the worldwide rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Most perish somewhere along the great hemispheric circuit, but the Moonbird wings on. He has been seen as recently as November 2011, which makes him nearly twenty years old. Shaking their heads, scientists ask themselves: How can this one bird make it year after year when so many others fall?

National Book Award-winning author Phillip Hoose takes us around the hemisphere with the world's most celebrated shorebird, showing the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a worldwide team of scientists and conservationists trying to save them, and offering insights about what we can do to help shorebirds before it's too late. With inspiring prose, thorough research, and stirring images, Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through the triumph of a single bird. Moonbird is one The Washington Post's Best Kids Books of 2012.

A Common Core Title.

Author: Phillip Hoose
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Published: 07/17/2012
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.59lbs
Size: 9.75h x 8.84w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780374304683
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.9
Point Value: 5
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 152444 / Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95


Award: Cybils - Finalist
Award: Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award - Honor Book
Award: Parents Choice Awards (Fall) (2008-Up) - Gold Medal Winner
Award: Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award - Nominee
Award: Capitol Choices: Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens - Recommended
Award: Tayshas Reading - Commended


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/14/2012 pg. 70
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2012
Booklist 06/01/2012 pg. 77
Horn Book Magazine 07/01/2012 pg. 135
Voice of Youth Advocates 08/01/2012 pg. 289 - Recommended - Better Than Most
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 09/01/2012 - Book Of Special Distinction
School Library Journal 10/01/2012 pg. 157
Kirkus Best Young-Adult Books 12/01/2012 pg. 66
SLJ's Best Books 12/01/2012 pg. 34
Booklist Ed Choice Youth 01/01/2013 pg. 11
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2013 - Outstanding, Noteworthy In Style

About the Author

Phillip Hoose is the widely-acclaimed author of the National Book Award winner Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, which is also a Newbery Honor Book, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, a YALSA Finalist for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, among other honors. His other books include The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and We Were There, Too!, a National Book Award Finalist. Mr. Hoose lives in Portland, Maine.