One sunny day as she’s flying high above a patchwork of rolling farmland, a sudden blast changes Katerina the stork’s life forever. Felled by a hunter’s bullet, she lays helpless in a field, with her beloved mate Luka squawking in distress, until a farmer and his granddaughter scoop her up and carry her home.
At first, the duo tend to Katerina’s injured wing in their living room; later, they help her to a nest they’ve created inside their barn. All the while, Luka hovers outside, peeking through every window to reassure himself Katerina is safe—and ensure that Katerina knows he is, as ever, close by. But as winter looms, the storks know they soon must part. “He would not bear the coming cold,” Katerina explains. “I could not bear the flight. And so we said goodbye.”
In some romantic-yet-tragic tales, a couple’s story might end with that inevitable, wrenching separation. But in author Carol Joy Munro’s moving and hopeful debut Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story, the storks’ separation transforms into a new beginning. Like the real-life birds that inspired Munro to write this story—a pair of Croatian storks named Malena and Klepetan, as detailed in the Author’s Note—Katerina and Luka adapt to their new reality and continue their love story in an unexpected but no less wonderful way.
Chelsea O’Byrne’s beautiful, often fanciful, chalk pastel and colored pencil illustrations cleverly convey Katerina’s longing for Luka during their first year apart: At night, a stork-shaped silhouette swoops through the stars, and by day, as Katerina stretches her wings, Luka-shaped clouds encourage her from above. O’Byrne’s emotive art colorfully captures the storks’ joyful reunion and parental pride in their three chicks, as well as the beauty of nature present all year round.
Budding naturalists will flock to Springtime Storks and its memorable celebration of loyalty and devotion, call to protect and conserve wildlife, and heartfelt reminder that love can prevail despite unanticipated challenges.
