After watching women go from having bird feathers in their hats to wearing whole dead birds, the Massachusetts Audubon Society is founded in 1896 in order to take a stand against what they consider an incredibly appalling practice.

Fictionalized account of the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

This wonderful picture-book follows the true story of cousins Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall, two very proper Boston ladies who, in the early years of the twentieth century, formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society, in response to the appalling hat fashions of the day. As the title, She's Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head!, suggests, these fashions involved the widespread slaughter of many different species of bird, so that their feathers and bodies could be used as decorations. Determined to put a stop to this "revolting" practice, Harriet and Minna launched a campaign that would have far-reaching consequences, both for the environmental and woman suffrage movements...

I really liked Lasky's narrative, which emphasized the strong feelings and high principles of both her heroines, while also subtly depicting the social constraints of their world: "ladies" didn't speak with their mouth full, didn't investigate without a male companion, and so on. I also liked that she highlighted the ties between different kinds of organizing, from bird protection to women's rights. The watercolor and ink illustrations by David Catrow - She's Wearing a Dead Bird on her Head! was chosen as a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book for 1995 - accentuated the humor and emotion of the story.

In her afterword, Lasky claims that the campaign started by Hemenway and Hall was instrumental in leading to a ban on the killing of birds by the hat industry, and that their organization, although not the first Audubon Society, was the first long-lasting one. None of that history is mentioned in the main Wikipedia entry on The National Audubon Society, making me doubly glad that this book is available to young readers. I think I will have to track down Jennifer Price's essay, When Women Were Women, Men Were Men, and Birds Were Hats, from Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America, for more information... ( )

This book tells a fictionalized story of how the Audubon Society was formed. I thought it was okay. ( )

The true story of two very well bred Boston ladies who formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society in the 1890s and started the Bird Hat Campaign in order to protect birds and stop people from using them to decorate their hats. They enlisted the help of many people, including children, who became junior members of the Audubon Society, and farmers and politicians -- and laws were eventually passed protecting birds. ( )