Enzo, The Swallows and Me by Helen Mortimer

We loved reading this follow on picture book to Omar and the bees. Again this author deals with tricky subjects with a beautiful, relatable story of two friends and their shared love of birds.

This would be perfect to include on a shelf about spring, migration, birds, technology, communication, friendship or moving home.

Great to have two male protagonists caring for nature in a practical way - perfect for our budding environmentalist 5yo boy. Seeing lots of channels to stay in touch has been a lovely way to explore communication. I especially liked to see Enzo & Jack’s fact-based letters - great models for inspiring writing.

Such a beautiful book. Totally aside from the story, it feels and smells so good! Owlet Press is such a lovely publisher. I really noticed this as soon as it arrived!!

The story and illustrations are both magic. We loved Omar the Bees and Me so I knew we'd like another by Helen Mortimer and Katie Cottle.

It's really nice to see different representation in this book (race and disability). The tale is of a friendship developing around a shared interest: birds. My daughter loves birds and has been fascinated by swallows after learning about them at preschool, so this is a perfect book for her! It's really nice to see birdwatching portrayed as a fun activity.

The book also shows how we can use technology for good purposes, like staying in touch with friends who are far away. As our children grow up with this as their normal, it's great to show this in books. It really shows how friendships can be maintained despite distance - it made me think of friends I had at school who had come on short exchanges, and afterwards we became penpals. So much better now with video calls!

All in all, a lovely tale of friendship, with the added bonus of learning about swallows and birdwatching. There's a lovely page of tips for young birdwatchers at the back too.

We love Enzo, the swallows & Me! What a lovely follow on from Omar the bees and me!

We loved that they also added them to this story- if you have good eyes you can spot them!

Matthew loved how Jack & Enzos friendship blossomed from the very start and how much they had in common, like pizza and annoying big sisters

This book is a new favourite! A lovely story about nature, friendship and using technology to stay in touch. Loved seeing the different ways Jack and Enzo stayed in contact. Lots of new facts too. My son loved learning more about swallows.
Also lovely to see disabled representation in the book.

A charming book that engaged each of my four children from my big 9 (almost 10!) year old as well as my 2 year old. We loved this book.

I have four little girls who all love nature walks and birds are pointed out daily. This book was a wonderful conversation starter around nature, friendship and loss. We could relate it to events in my own children's life as well as think about how both Jack and Enzo might be feeling at differing times of the book. I liked how the author used technology to show how you can stay in touch with those far away - my girls do this to speak to family who live far away as well as ones that are more local - especially after lockdown.

Overall, my children (and myself) enjoyed this story and we cannot wait to read more from this author.