The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa’s Last Great Herds by Sy Montgomery
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on June 11th 2019
ISBN: 0544761138
Pages: 176
Goodreads

Sibert medalist, Sy Montgomery takes the reader to the plains of Africa to join a prestigious team of scientists, guides, and photographers on her greatest quest yet- follow the herds of wildebeests that migrate with the rains. Led by her friend and the world’s foremost expert on wildebeests, Dr. Richard Estes, they will follow the wildebeest which according to Montgomery “drive the ecology and evolution of the largest savanna ecosystem in the world.” She goes on to say that wildebeest migration defines wild Africa. Montgomery always excites her readers with an abundance of  facts, supported by  extraordinary photographs, on this trip those of father rand son team Roger and Logan Wood.  Montgomery details her trip as they follow the migration of a quarter of a million beasts along with hundreds of thousands of zebra and gazelles in the largest movement of animals on land. This is a book that takes time to read and reread. Not only does the reader gain information on the herds but there are stories of other animals- lions that climb trees to escape biting insects, Arctic terns that fly from Antarctica to Africa, then to South America and on to the Arctic, hyenas, red crabs, and hippos cover just some of those in the book. This is Montgomery at her best! A must for every library ! Use in grades 5 and up.

Reviewed by Kathy George, Gray Public Library, Gray