Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall are very proper Boston ladies, but they find the latest nineteenth-century fashion in women’s hats appalling. All over town, fashionable ladies are parading around with dead birds perched upon their heads! Besides driving the poor birds to extinction, the silly hats are making women look frivolous and ridiculous. But women in 1896 cannot vote, much less have a say in how the world is run. So Minna and Harriet gather together the most prominent people in the area to form a club to protect the birds -- the Audubon Society, named after John Audubon, the famous painter of birds. The club writes letters to local women, imploring them to end the fashion fiasco; visits and invites schoolchildren to join their cause; and rallies doctors, lawyers, and other professional men to make a stand in the courtrooms. Eventually these actions garner enough nationwide attention to initiate the passage of important bird protection acts. Playfully detailed illustrations bring to life this enthralling tale of how one of America’s oldest and most successful preservation groups came to be. In this age of conservation, children will be fascinated with the seldom-told inspirational and informative piece of history of how two determined ladies became classic American activists -- for women, for social progress, and, of course, for the birds.

Newbery Honor recipient Kathryn Lasky has written both fiction and non-fiction books for children, including Star-Split and Days of the Dead. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David Catrow is a well-known illustrator of books for children and a syndicated political cartoonist. She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head! was named a 1995 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year. He lives in Springfield, Ohio.