Jo the Crow

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

Jo the Crow is the heartwarming, true story of Josephine, a tiny,
starving baby crow rescued and adopted by the Kadwell family of
Haliburton, Ontario. Told simply in a rather childlike style, the story
emphasizes two important points. First, is the tremendous investment of
time and energy necessary to care for orphaned or injured birds. Most
people do not realize, for example, that a baby bird must be fed at
least every half hour. Second, crows are extremely intelligent. Crows
and dolphins and humans all have brains that are the same size in
proportion to their body sizes.

Young readers will delight at the antics of Jo and be amazed at her
cleverness. Who would imagine that a bird would try to trip you by
pulling at your shoelaces, or find her way into the house through the
cat’s screen door, or bring home gifts of someone’s pink underwear
and car keys, or steal the clothes pegs from the clothes line leaving
the laundry in a heap on the ground? They will pore over the actual
photographs of Jo and her adopted family. And they will be sad when,
knowing that not everyone is as fond of Jo as they are, the Kadwells
decide that they must take her far away and let her go, so far away that
she can’t find her way back.

In addition to the story itself the author has included a section,
“Facts About Crows,” which contains a wealth of information about
these amazing birds, along with several myths and legends about them.
The book ends with a message from Mr. Kadwell himself. Recommended.