Vultures, A Love Story

Author's Note

Little Igor (eye-gore), a vulture, was born with a limp and an unusual feather sticking up from his otherwise bald head. This tale is about appreciating our differences and our skills and recognizing that we all deserve love.

Instructions to Big People and a Warning:

This book is designed to be read to children ages 6 and up. The book is an accurate, detailed portrayal of nature. Children interested in science will enjoy it. It may not be suitable for some children.  Encourage readers to find the hidden heart, and my signature bug, on every page of this beautifully illustrated tale.

Kirkus Review

Schaufeld’s yarn follows the adventures of Igor (pronounced “eye-gore,” fittingly), a vulture chick born with a backward-facing foot and an anomalous single feather atop his head. These differences worry Igor’s insensitive parents and provoke disdain among other vultures. Igor grows up lonely but hones his flying skills and his keen senses of sight and smell; he dines on rodents and other animals in out-of-the-way places. One day, a vulture named Ingrid joins him at a vigil over a dying fawn; they bemoan the tiny creature’s passing, but still eat it, as real-life vultures would. One day, they’re set upon by two foxes and must resort to a vulture’s last, desperate defense measure: vomiting. Schaufeld tells this tale with mordant aplomb, writing in limpid, cleareyed prose that unflinchingly relates the realities of vulture life while drolly anthropomorphizing them. Schwarz’s paintings graphically render the scavenging birds in glorious realism and color, their red heads and amber eyes glowing above lustrous blue-brown feathers; he brings them to life in richly detailed tableaux, peering at gory roadkill or regurgitating flesh to feed their young. It’s not for younger and/or squeamish kids, but older children with strong stomachs will love it.