Idioms are so great. I always find myself saying them in my day to day life. I enjoyed how this gives a younger audience these idioms and what they mean as well.

Birds of a Feather is an attractive, illustrated book of commonly used idioms. Children don't understand the meaning of all, so this could help them learn what they mean. Illustrator showed the literal meaning of idioms. They are excellent and funny. I like that the author also included one origin of an idiom at the back.

***I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.***

This book has lovely illustrations and plenty of bright colors! I really love the concept of the book and the simple explanations of common idioms. The best part is how the book makes sure to include an explanation of what idioms are and how to use them.
While clearly intended for children, I think this book would be just as useful for people who don't know English as their first language. Really great!

This book was very cute and informative! The illustrations add such a good flare to the book! I think these illustrations are my favorite out of all books i've seen! I also love how they share the meaning about every idiom. It will educate all the children in a fun way!

This is a children's collection of common idioms, from the titular "Birds of a Feather" to "butterflies in your stomach" and many more. While the illustrations gave a literal interpretation of each, I was hoping for a more detailed description of the idioms, including the reasons WHY the phrases are as they are. The last page provides some insight into the origins of the phrase "Barking up the wrong tree", but the rest of the phrases simply outline their current, common use.


**I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

Birds of a Feather: A Book of Idioms and Silly Pictures, written by Vanita Oelschlager and illustrated by Robin Hegan, is an exploration of fun phrases. The book introduces children to the magic of idioms - words that separately have one meaning, but together take on something entirely different with outlandish illustrations of what the words describe literally. The reader then has to guess the "real" meaning of the phrases (which is upside down in the corner of each spread).

Birds of a Feather: A Book of Idioms and Silly Pictures is a cute book and worthy of a fun grinsa and chuckles. The illustrations and bright and bold, catching and holding the reader's attention. Some of the paths the book took for the literal interpretations were not the way I would have gone, but they made for fun pictures. I like that the meaning of the idiom way on each page, but I would have liked more information on the background of the sayings, perhaps in the endpages. One offering of such information was there, but I think more of this could have been done beyond encouraging readers to think about sayings more. Maybe suggestions for further reading in books or on websites that might go into more detail.

The book was fine for what it promised, but I was kind of hoping for a little more.

My 5yo loved the illustrations and it was fun explaining the phrases to her. She’s heard us use the idioms but seeing them in print with fun illustrations was a great way learn the phrases. There were several I didn’t even know! Such a sweet book.

I don't have kids, but I thoroughly enjoyed this nonetheless. It has some of the most delightful and whimsical illustrations I've seen in children's books. Some of them had me cackling at their cleverness.

The book is meant to help children understand expressions we use that don't make sense when taken literally. For each one, there is an illustration that shows what the idiom would look like in a literal sense. Then, in small print, upside down, there is an explanation of the meaning of the expression.
For example, "hogwash" shows a hog taking a shower, with several other hogs waiting in line with their towels for a turn in the shower. Adorable.

The only thing I didn't like was the upside-down explanations. I can understand using small print so as to give the illustration its full effect, but right-side up would have been more user-friendly.

This book is full of amazing artwork to go with common Idioms that we hear in the American culture, such as "Birds of a feather". My favorite was "look what the cat dragged in", and "barking up the wrong tree". This is a beautiful book that I believe children would look at over and over.

Thank you to Netgalley for the Advanced Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review.
#NetGalley

What a great idea for a book and to help children understand idioms in the English language.
A book of idioms based on animals with a license to be silly with the illustrations seems to be the starting point. This is a very good place to start as it takes the words into an extreme imagined picture which reenforces that you don’t understand the saying by knowing what the words mean in themselves.
I liked this approach; but some worked better than others to my mind. A wild goose chase is the best example. A great drawing, words of explanation and usage but importantly it’s derivation. The difference between farm geese and the wild ones.
In the other cases you are asked at the end to do this work yourself as a carry on learning experience.
It gives barking up the wrong tree as the example - siting that it has its origins in colonial times in America chasing raccoons with dogs.
I would like the book to do more of this work or have a few websites where there are children friendly places to study words and idioms.
I think kids will love it and start looking for and using idioms more as they add so much texture and colour to our language.
Scope for many follow on books - would recommend.

My brother (13) loved this book. He has always been fascinated with idioms and when I saw this title I knew he'd enjoy it.
When he was younger he also used to illustrate them, so this was fun for us to look through together.

The illustrations weren't quite to my personal taste, although it was mostly the birds that I found slightly creepy. I loved seeing the brushstrokes in the artist's work.

The one issue we had with the book was the explanation of the idiom and an example of how it is used. Why did it need to be upside down? It was extremely awkward having to keep flipping the book back and forth, and I feel that it would have been perfectly fine the right-way-up.

Thanks for this title.

This book was definitely not what I expected based off of the cover. I expected a book about different types of birds, but this book is about idioms (although several of the selected idioms include birds). With that said, I think this book would be a great resource for a parent or teacher to use when trying to teach children about idioms. The end of the book includes a description of what an idiom is. I feel that this description would be better placed at the beginning of the book for students who may pick this book up on their own. The pictures are cute and humorous. I feel that the illustrator did a great job of capturing what readers may imagine when they read or hear each idiom.

Each page includes one common idiom along with an explanation of what the idiom means and an example of how the idiom could be used in a sentence. These explanations and examples are useful for those that either don't understand idioms or don't understand why they might be used in the English language. Overall, I think that this book would be a great addition to elementary school or classroom libraries.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book has delightful pictures that children will love. Most children younger will not understand the idioms even after discussion, but this is a read-to-book and great for discussions especially with older children.

This is a fun, engaging learning tool. My rating 4.25.

As adults we have heard idioms all our lives but you can well imagine that a child might wonder what is meant by “ants in his pants” or “bull in a china shop”. And what are “goosebumps” or a “wild goose chase”?

This book covers sixteen or so well-known idioms. The book states the idiom with a whimsical, interpretive and engaging illustration. The meaning of the idiom, and an example using it in a sentence, is shown upside down on the bottom of the page. Some images, like “barking up a tree” and “raining cats and dogs” are perfectly fitting. Other illustrations did not fit as well in my view, even though they were all fun.

I love words and the meaning of words, so I was naturally drawn to this. I have also read and enjoyed two other books by Vanita Oelschlager. I found the tone and intent of the work delightful and think it would be wonderful to use with children.

Source: 2019 NetGalley.

A beautifully illustrated book with pictures that match the idioms they’re representing. It was grey how simple the book was. An idiom, a drawing and what the idiom represents. This book was fun to read and had me giggling at a lot of the drawings.

I’d give a bunch of examples of the idioms in the book but I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag.

Beautiful illustrations! Love the concept of helping children understand idioms through pictures as well as written explanation. As a librarian who reads to her students I would have liked the explanations written right side up (instead of upside down as they appear in this book). Some of the pictures are not what I would have pictured, but, they are still amazing. I will be adding this to my library!

The pages with the idiom written out and the adorable and detailed image is amazing. The icing on the cake is the two small lines (smaller text and upside down on the page so it's not obvious) explaining what the idiom means and using it in a sentence.
I just read this book to my four year old and she loved it but I could see it being perfect for someone who'd have heard about half or more of the idioms before. Overall an adorable book that would be perfect to read to kids, for young readers, or even adorable for someone new to the English language.

Super cute! Not sure who liked the book more the kids or myself. Idioms. The illustrations were funny and wonderfully drawn. We will be reading and laughing again and again.

Using Robin Hegan’s adorable illustrations, Vanita Oelschlager teaches children about idioms such as hogwash, goosebumps, spring chicken, and snug as a bug in a rug. Adding to the fun is a sentence using the expression, which can be read when the book is turned upside down. By making learning so much fun, kids will be delighted to learn new phrases and improve their reading skills.

Birds of a Feather is a cute introduction for children on Idioms. Each page has one idiom in bold letters with an adorable illustration to show the idiom. When you flip the book over, the explanation for the idiom is in small letters with a sentence including the idiom to explain further. The author has a wonderful explanation at the back of the book called “What are Idioms” with an illustration and the history of that one particular idiom.

Although I found this book totally adorable with its illustrations, I wish it would have had just a little more. The history that the author did for the one featured idiom at the back of the book was informative and interesting. I wish we would have gotten more information for the other idioms featured in the book. Also, I had an issue with the extremely small print and having to flip the book. The arc I received was in digital format, so possibly the book format print is not as small. For young children, this book is cute and fun and they will probably get a good laugh at it, for the slightly older child they may need a little more as I mentioned above.