The Illustrated Guide to Ducks and Geese and Other Domestic Fowl: How to Choose Them. How to Keep Them.
An author-artist of guides to domestic animals (The Illustrated Guide to Chickens, 2011; The Illustrated Guide to Pigs, 2011) focuses this time on the non-chicken domestic fowl. Ducks and geese fill the majority of the book, with the remainder covering guineafowl, peafowl, quail, and turkeys. Opening with short discourses on feathers, Lewis then moves to the heart of the book, introducing and describing the birds themselves. Each section starts with the basics of housing, feeding, and breeding, then follows up with breed accounts and short descriptions, including practical advice and tables delineating weights, egg colors, number of eggs per year, and plumage colors. The real charm of the book and what makes it excellent for a library collection are Lewis’ beautiful, highly expressive watercolor illustrations. She captures not only the details of each bird but also its essential gestalt (or gizz, to use a birdwatcher’s term), making readers ready to add some ducks or geese to their backyards. --Nancy Bent