"Where Do Birds Live?" is a perfect book for parents or grandparents to read to children. Everyone is going to have a good time and learn something, even bird-friendly adults.

Artist and author Claudia McGehee provides a brief life-summary of 14 bird species and the habitat in which they live. There is a conservation tone to it all, important for children if we are to preserve in the future any meaningful part of our natural world.

Ms. McGehee illustrates the book with her signature colorful scratchboard drawings, one full-page piece of art for each species, with smaller drawings scattered through the text, providing natural talking points for readers who wish to more deeply engage the listeners.

The book, another of the beautiful natural history books published by the University of Iowa Press, is perfect as a holiday gift. Cloth bound, 32 pages, 63 scratchboard illustrations, $17.95.