Canary in the Coal Mine Hardcover – May 1, 2013

An adorable Canary named Bitty tell a story of his work in the Coal mines and his plan to escape. I am a teacher, and this has been a great read- aloud for my first graders. It has great vocabulary to introduce, as well as a subject that my students were not familiar with. It has led to great discussions. They loved it.

Great book! It covers all the N.C.S.S. It would be very useful in the classroom. I would read it to 3rd graders and grades 4-8 would benefit from the book. I'm very happy with this purchase!

It's a great story for kids. It's not your traditional story, but is masterfully written with characters that jump off the page. Every school and library should have this book, especially in Appalachian areas.

Madelyn Rosenberg makes the successful transition for little kid books to young adult fiction. Our daughter likes us reading her this book even though it doesn't have pictures.

Coalminer friend really enjoyed it and the history of the canary.

This gem of a novel takes readers back to the time when canaries were a key part of mining life, and reimagines that life from the canary's point of view. In this case, a gutsy little canary named Bitty sees one too many accidents happen and decides it's time to take action. He flies to the state capitol to figure out how he can make the mines safer for canaries and humans. Along the way, he befriends a multilingual mouse and dodges a dangerous predator in the sky. Fans of the Cricket in Times Square and Stuart Little will love the rich animal world presented in this book.

I love birds, so when my library received an advance reader's copy of Canary in the Coal Mine I took it to read and review.I'm not sure whether the opening will grab the 8-12 year-old kids the book is intended for. It's pretty grim, describing life in the coal mines for canaries and miners, and the friends and family the main character canary Bitty has lost to the mines. The best part of the book is the middle, when Bitty heads to the state capital to try to do something about mining conditions for miners and canaries. He meets other bird species and learns to speak a few words in "foreign" languages like cat and mouse.The personification of the birds aside, the book is not very factual about birds. For example, it would not be a good idea to free pet birds and let them go live in the wild.But Bitty is an admirable main character, the narrative does contain some light humor, and the plot moves along. I don't think this is destined to become a classic, but the right child might enjoy it.

I liked the idea of this story and the talking birds and mice are intriguing. But the book contains too many animal characters and long sentences for most middle readers. Super readers who are animal lovers will stick with the story, but others will lose interest because of the way the story is told.-Hope Irvin Marston, author of MY LITTLE BOOK OF BALD EAGLES.