The pastel illustrations have a good portion of red in them, and the backgrounds show a good use of watercolor wash with pen and ink accents. Ruzzier may not have been trying to replicate the bird in Eastman's Are You My Mother, but the young robins certainly brought that fictional bird to mind.

The poems cover the material about bird life cycles very thoroughly, although it might have been nice to have a short section at the end of the book with more information and a few photographs, to reinforce to younger readers that all of the information is real and not a story. The poems are simple but well crafted; I am very particular about rhyme and scansion, and nothing stuck out as awkwardly done.

I normally deal with collections of poetry, or thematic poetry book that tell stories of school, so I haven't read many that teach science facts. There are apparently a number of these, however, such as Andreae's
Bustle in the bushes, Harrison's Crawly school for bugs : Poems to drive you buggy and A place to start a family : poems about creatures that build and Lin's Our food : a healthy serving of science and poems. Who knew?