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Illustrated by Kristin Kest
The Millbrook Press, 2000
$21.90 hardcover
32 pages

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The Peregrine's Journey follows the fall migration of a tundra peregrine from Alaska to Argentina. This falcon takes just two months to make her amazing 8000 mile journey, and she'll do it again when she returns north in the spring.

Madeleine Dunphy treats both her reader and the peregrine with dignity and respect. She has based her text on a real peregrine whose migration was tracked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Using this particular female as an example, Dunphy describes the details of migration as they apply to the species in general: what peregrines hunt, their preference for staying near water, how high or fast they can fly even that they may take the time to play with other peregrines. There is also a map showing this peregrine's migration route.

She flies across mountains, cities, desert, forests and jungle. Against these backgrounds Kristin Kest's full page, full color illustrations show the peregrine engaged in the daily activities of her migration. The pictures are starkly realistic, but Kest also catches a subtle, appealing cockiness in the peregrine's poise.

The Peregrine's Journey might start a young reader or two on the path to an enthusiasm for falcons and hawks. As a previously endangered species, peregrines still need all the support they can get.

Dust jacket illustration by Kristin Kest; used courtesy of The Millbrook Press.

Reviewed by Wendy Morris. © 2001 by Wendy Morris

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