While looking at my grand-daughter's books with her it occurred to me that here, at three years old, she can identify images which bear little resemblance to the actual creatures portrayed: whale, giraffe, ostrich, etc. At the zoo she recognizes the elephant, tiger, giraffe, etc. Why, I wondered, do children's books have such simplified renderings of animals? She may not be able to read the names, but she knows a giraffe is a giraffe. Her father is an avid birder and can barely wait to take her birding, so why not an alphabet book with realistic pictures of birds? Thus, "The A to Z Book of Birds: An ABC for Young Bird Lovers" - she will know her birds before she knows her alphabet. I'm sure my grand-daughter is not the only three-year-old genius out there. This book is designed to be useful from age three to well beyond learning the alphabet, when the text, informative and entertaining, will continue to teach and the paintings be a guide to identification in the field.