Swan Song: Poems of Extinction

By J. Patrick Lewis
Woodcuts by Christopher Wormell

I think the foreword to this book sums everything up pretty well:
More than ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. The most enduring and compelling image of large-scale death is that of the dinosaurs, colossal reptiles who vanished from Earth sixty-five million years ago.

At the other extreme, the last falling feather of the Passenger Pigeon, which once numbered in the billions, had all the impact of a single snowflake fluttering down a canyon. The last Barbary Lion, far form being celebrated, amused a North African king as a carpet. The howling echo of Miss Waldron's Red Colobus monkey will soon be a memory to no one at all.

This book is about the recently departed. In Earth's geat forests and fields, they buzzed and chirped and bellowed through little incidents of sorry from roughly 1627 to 2000. Whether beautiful or homely, giant or dwarf, each species was its own drama in many disappearing acts, even if it was very far off the Broadway of the dinosaurs.

On Earth, six animal species die every hour, many of the most recent due to climate change, habitat destruction, or human greed or carelessness or indifference. Here are a few small epitaphs in verse to mark their passing.

There a lot of really great things that I like about this book. First, that all of these extinct animals are presented in poetry (in "a few small eitaphs," as the foreword says) makes their passing much more emotional and easy to relate to. Of course it is interesting to read nonfiction books about extinct animals as well - but many nonfiction books simply present the facts and hardly seem to mourn the loss of such interesting and unique animals. I believe that presenting this information in poetry makes it easier for children (and adults!) to recognize the importance of preserving our planet's wildlife.

Second, the illustrations in this book are all black and white woodcuts - somehow simultaneously portraying each of the animals intricately and simply at the same time. These woodcuts seem to capture the true essence of these animals, without any cartoonish qualities. Of course, many of these animals were never photographed, so I think that using woodcuts is an effective way of illustrating them.

The third thing I really enjoy is the wealth of information that this book offers. The animals are listed in order of extinction, starting with the Aurochs in 1627 and ending with Miss Waldron's Red Colobus monkey in 2000. At the top of each page is the animal's Latin name, the date of its extinction, and where it used to live. At the bottom of each page is a continuing time line telling us important events that were happening at the time - the bubonic plague in 1681, the publishing of Frankenstein in 1818, the invention of Coca-Cola in 1899, the beginning of WWI in 1914, the Great Depression in 1933, etc. I really like the inclusion of this time line because it gives us the context in which these animals disappeared. The back of the book includes "Endnotes" which give us more factual information about each of the animals, since some of the poems don't cover all the details.

This book would definitely be best suited for upper elementary readers, since a lot of the information is too specific for younger readers to fully understand. But overall I think this book would be a great resource for the classroom, because it is very interesting and it presents a serious topic in a very unique way. I definitely recommend this book!