Family Magazine Review: Animals are Amazing:  Little Vulture’s mom offers to teach him how to get his own food. But he’s already off, finding it for himself. Still learning to fly, he plops on Bald Vulture’s dinner of rotten meat, and after trying it, decides it’s not for him. He doesn’t like the bones that are Bearded Vulture’s dinner either. When he accidentally opens the rotten egg by landing on it, Egyptian vulture thanks him. But after tasting, Little Vulture is again not interested. Each time the vultures remind him that if they didn’t eat what Little Vulture thinks is yukky – “who would?” Their eating habits help “to keep things neat.” The importance of what vultures contribute by eating carrion is  emphasized by the repetitive comments in large easy to read text,  following each of Little Vulture’s food inspections. Expressive  illustrations draw readers into the story. The sister/brother author/illustrator team have combined their talents to share this  engaging, environmentally thoughtful picture book. Back matter includes  facts about vultures, a glossary, and references. -- Maribeth Shank, Family Magazine

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Marta Magellan’s charming, intelligently written book THE NUTTY LITTLE  VULTURE, beautifully illustrated by Mauro Magellan, takes on the  symbiotic cycle of life that keeps the earth working by offering kids a  detailed understanding how Mother Nature feeds, cleans and replenishes  itself by practicing NO WASTE.
  The little palm-nut vulture learns quickly how bald headed vultures eat  newly killed carrion, how bearded vultures eat carcass’ bones, how  Egyptian vultures eat their eggs that never hatched. She discovers that  she is a palm-nut vulture -- the only vulture that eats nuts and fruits  and small fish. She learns that palm-nut vultures hang upside down  eating palm nuts that they hold with their feet!
   Who knew there was such variety and specificity to the vulture species?!  And the bottom line is,  all these vultures together work hard to keep  our planet clean—just as all other species do their jobs too. Everyone  gets fed and everyone has their specific purpose.
  That’s what we all need to do. Great message! If the family of vultures  can do their work for Zero Waste, so can our family of humans.
  It’s a short book with a brilliant educational and social message,   perfectly illustrated to attract and keep total attention and  fascination on message.
 I love this book for adults and kids of all ages.
 

Micaela Amateau Amato
Illustrator ZAZU DREAMS Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A  Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era, by Cara Judea ALhadeff

I enjoy writing picture books for all ages, early readers, and especially nonfiction.