Reviews for Brilliant Birds

The average rating for Brilliant Birds based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-04-14 00:00:00 Vicki Ramsey Lots of interesting equestrian information and details, with Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen providing some very nicely realistic and brightly hued accompanying illustrations to Michael Ulmer's presented texts, but yet and honestly, I have not really all that much personally been able to enjoy H is for Horse: An Equestrian Alphabet. For one, the main alphabet (letter) sections are often rather sadly uneven with regard to quality of lyricism and narrational flow, and for two (and much more importantly, frustratingly), the author does tend to in my opinion spend far too much time celebrating and glowingly depicting and generally always positively presenting horseback riding and the relationship between humans and horses (without ever really and truly even somewhat dealing with the sorry but unfortunately true fact of the matter that horses are sometimes and indeed still far too often trained with harsh, even potentially abusive riding and lounging methods and that especially certain equestrian sports such as Chuckwagon and Thoroughbred Racing, Show Jumping and Three Day Eventing definitely have had and continue to have their share of scandals and instances of obvious cruelty to animals issues, including equine fatalities, something that I for one do firmly believe should have at least been mentioned and alluded to within the narrative, within the pages of H is for Horse: An Equestrian Alphabet, as how it stands and is presented by author Michael Ulmer, it certainly does seem to me as though he firmly thinks that riders can basically do little wrong and that ALL horses must somehow and seemingly be trained and face corrective measures to break them of, to get rid of supposedly bad and inherently problematic equine behaviours). And no, I am not in ANY way against horseback riding in and of itself, but especially with a number of equestrian sports, there have indeed been more and more recent and not so recent scandals and issues with regard to potential animal rights and animal competitor safety issues, and yes indeed and in my opinion, horses are first and foremost beautiful and lovely, noble creatures and not just and primarily sports and leisure resources for their riders, breeders and owners to utilise at their pleasure. Also and furthermore, calling the disappearance of horses from North and South America (although horses had from fossil evidence obviously first evolved there) an evolutionary disgrace is at best a simplistic definition, as while we really do not as yet totally know and understand why this occurred between 8000 and 11000 years ago, there is quite a bit of hardcore evidence that North and South American horses along with wooly mammoths and other so-called Pleistocene megafauna might very well have been hunted to extinction by the first human arrivals in the Americas (and while this of course is still but a theory and has therefore not been absolutely proven to any extent, Michael Ulmer should have at least mentioned this, as human overhunting is most definitely and actively being both historically and scientifically considered a very distinctly real possibility and reason as to why horses became extinct in North and South America approximately 10000 or so years ago and only returned to both continents with the Spanish and other mostly European colonists and settlers).

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-22 00:00:00 Jin Kurtz A little bit of history, a little bit of animal care to a little bit of facts- H is for horse gets young readers by the bit and guides them through our equestrian world. One of many books in this well-built series it is a pictorial celebrations featuring one of man's favorite animals. A champion for sure!