ALA Booklist (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

According to the jacket-flap copy, "By the 1950s only 450 pairs of bald eagles remained in the United States." Eggs from Alaska were taken to some of those eagles to hatch and raise. In the story that follows, a boy volunteers to watch an aerie where his friend, a park ranger, has placed an egg in the hopes that a mated pair will adopt it. The eagles ignore the egg at first, but soon they accept it as their own. When the boy grows up, he shows his son 30 bald eagles soaring above a river. With no back matter other than a list of websites, it's unclear whether the boy's story is true. Despite the Dewey number, it reads like fiction inspired by actual events. Created with watercolor, gouache, and pencil, Minor's landscapes and scenes featuring the eagles are particularly effective. Like The Wolves Are Back (2008) and The Buffalo Are Back (2010), this picture book offers hope for the recovery of endangered species.

Horn Book (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Glorious paintings illustrate this satisfying story of the attempts to save the American bald eagle from extinction. George provides a short history of the species and the threat to its existence from DDT pesticide. A young boy who watches over an experiment where two eagles in Yellowstone adopt a healthy egg imported from Alaska provides structure and personalizes the account.

Kirkus Reviews

George, who chronicled the return to America's wild places of wolves and buffalo in two similar titles, now celebrates the comeback of the American bald eagle with a combination of fact and imagination. Her slight story stars an unnamed boy and eagles known as Uncle Sam and First Lady and is set years ago, when eagles were disappearing, their eggs cracking because of DDT in the food chain. The boy helps the eagles, their own eggs broken, raise an eaglet from a transplanted egg by throwing fish he catches to the parents. Not only does the boy watch the pair brood the egg and nurture the hatchling he calls Alaska, he sees it take flight. Later, as an adult watching 30 eagles over the Hudson River, he can tell his son that he contributed to the eagles' return. Though presented as true, the incident is undocumented and the threat to eagles in the contiguous 48 states statistically oversimplified. (The vast majority of the half-million eagles here when the Puritans came lived in Alaska, where they were never threatened.) Nonetheless, readers will be cheered by this inspiring picture book, illustrated with Minor's dramatic gouache-and-watercolor paintings, which portray close-up eagle portraits, vignettes and vast landscapes. A heartwarming culmination to a distinguished career. (Picture book. 5-9)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this inspiring companion to The Wolves Are Back and The Buffalo Are Back, Minor and the late George complete a trio of -environmental success stories that show us it is possible to preserve nature for future generations,- as Minor puts it in his acknowledgments. The book retains the economical prose of its predecessors, though a pair of central human characters-a boy and a park ranger who share a passion for endangered bald eagles-give this story an added intimacy for readers. The bald eagle-s numbers had dropped from half a million when the Founding Fathers named it the national bird to less than 1,000, due in large part to the use of the pesticide DDT. The ranger and boy attempt to get a pair of bald eagles, named Uncle Sam and First Lady, to adopt an egg that has been brought in from Alaska after the birds- own eggs were destroyed. Minor-s gouache and watercolor are characteristically majestic-from the eagles- delicate feathers and thatched nests to the cloudy blue skies and bright forests around them, every spread is thick with texture and detail. Ages 6-8. (Mar.)-

School Library Journal (Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2013)

Gr 3-4 This tale of the bald eagle's survival from a threatened state is set in an undated era when eggs, made fragile as DDT pervaded the environment, cracked under the weight of brooding birds. George begins a fictionalized scheme telling of a boy observing eagles "by a remote lake" and then helping a park ranger to encourage adoption by local birds of an imported egg placed in their empty nest. The author seamlessly blends factual explanations into the story line, telling how the eagles have wide influence on nature as their eating habits send food remnants to smaller creatures and then sketching the birds' years of decline. The boy and the ranger become observers as a successful hatching occurs, and the text then follows the care and growth of the eaglet until it takes flight. Minor's paintings handsomely convey the eagles' impressive stature and the natural settings they inhabit. The book fits loosely with two others in which these longtime collaborators describe animals recovering from threatened extinction- The Wolves Are Back (2008) and The Buffalo Are Back (2010, both Dutton). The factual information is a quick sketch with no author's note or end matter-save a short list of websites-to add facts or indicate if the story is actually grounded in real events. Libraries and readers will welcome this engaging introduction to the iconic bird, and it is a nice addition to the growing list of books featuring children as active participants in caring for the natural world. Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston