Baldy the American Eagle

My 11 year old loves the book, but she isn’t sensitive to how nature works. It was very descriptive and informative, which is what we enjoy. She did ask why it ended the way it did. We just ended up having another conversation about life and death and how everything isn’t a fairy tale ending in real life. If you have sensitive little ones be prepared for the ending.

We don’t shy away from the real side of nature – animals eating other animals, hunting, and that not every story has a perfectly happy ending. My boys appreciated learning about bald eagles through this story. They love seeing the bald eagles at our zoo, and the nests. While this story does have some sad events, it ends on a hopeful note that the eagles will persevere and life will move forward.

This story follows Baldy and his mate as the raise their eaglets. Building a nest, hatching, struggling for food, etc building a connection with the eaglets. But then 2 pages before the end, the eaglets both die suddenly and descriptively. I understand it’s nature and real life, however, book left me and my daughter quite sad.

Goodness, what a depressing book. My daughter enjoyed this book and all the facts and behaviors about bald eagles until the last few pages. The ending was completely unnecessary. SPOILER ALERT: My daughter was very upset that after all the eagles’ hard work, their nest was destroyed and eaglets were killed in a storm. Why was this necessary? Yes, the eagles persevere and continue on looking for a new home to start a new family, but if you have an animal loving child like mine, that gives very little comfort.

As soon as we finished reading Baldy, my 11 and 7 year old declared that they loved this book! They loved that it was about nature and family, (an Eagle family of course). My son and I would look up videos after each chapter to see eagles in action. I liked learning about the life of Bald eagles in the form of story.