The Beak Book is a 2021 nonfiction picture book created by Robin Page. If you’ve been reading this blog, you can stop now and know that you should go find, read, look at, and enjoy this book.
In case this is your first book by page, I’ll say more. Page and her (now deceased) husband Steve Jenkins created a stream of nonfiction picture books about the natural world that were defined by several qualities; a useful thematic focus, vivid and engaging art, and skillful design. They set the bar for what nonfiction picture books can be, and Page is continuing this tradition alone.
The Beak Book focuses on beaks. It opens with a lovely two-page spread that makes great use of white space on the left page, while the right gives an overview of the varieties of bird beaks out there. Then, in graceful, colorful spreads that sometimes address a beak per page, and sometimes dedicate two pages to a beak type, Page explores types of beaks. The text and layout work together to create unity: each page starts with a brief declarative sentence in a larger (and colored) font. These sentences give the beak’s function, like “This beak is for sniffing,” on the page about the kiwi.
Each beak type then gets two illustrations. One is a close-up, focusing on the beak itself, and foregrounding its shape and design. The other is a smaller image giving the bird’s full body and the beak in action. Late in the book, there’s a multi-page spread illustrating a bird breaking its way out of an egg to be hatched. Each bird is named, and a two-page spread closing the book locates a range of birds on maps and gives a quick summary of their diets.
This book is lovely enough to be a coffee table book for adults.
