This book by Candace Savage, reviewed earlier on her work writing about the Prairie, was not at all what I expected. It seems difficult for that to be the case, as the title is clear. The opening sentence of the book quickly demonstrates my problem. “Like most people, I have crow stories to tell. There was the time in the northern forest when a raven–and what is a raven except a crow taken to the extreme?–flew over my head….” I’m no expert on birding, but I think the only time in my experience that ravens and crows are confused as the same species are when I am the one confused, not from any author or scientific work I read. It is true that common names are somewhat meaningless and you really have to be careful and use scientific names when introducing a species so everyone knows which species is being discussed.

While reading the book, I learned that the author sort of focuses on the Corvus genus, with an emphasis on ravens, then crows, and then various other species. We don’t always know which kind of crow is being discussed, but she is pretty good at clarifying when it’s not properly called a crow, though you can’t always be sure–and there are situations you can’t be sure. As a work on the corvus genus, it was lacking, since it didn’t really talk about evolution or spread, so it wasn’t that kind of book.

This book was a combination of experiences people, mostly researchers, had with different members of the genus as well as stories, legends, myths, and artwork of different cultures. So there are aspects you wouldn’t get in a normal book, specifically the human cultural information, and some of the stories by researchers were new to me, but the choice in presentation was very strange. At least the book was very short, especially with all the photos.