There have been books in this series about the childhood of famous generals and statesmen and authors. Here's one about a boy who loved birds–and it is just as interesting as the others. Because he loved and observed birds and learned to paint them exactly as they were, he performed a wonderful service for his adopted country.

Indeed, no collection of books about great Americans would be complete without the story of John James Audubon–the little French boy who became so celebrated a name in America that his bronze bust rests in the Hall of Fame, countless towns, parks and streets are named for him, and the Audubon Society was founded in his honor. In Trinity Cemetery downtown in New York City stands a beautiful memorial called the Audubon Monument, and here, on Children's Day in June, young people gather to hold services in memory of the great naturalist and painter who taught them to appreciate the birds of their native land. In recent years hundreds of thousands of books containing reproductions of his wonderful bird pictures have been distributed throughout America. Never did the name of Audubon shine so brightly as it does today.

Some of the beautiful birds that thronged our country when it was new are now extinct. Still John Audubon's paintings keep them alive for us always.

Miriam E. Mason who tells his story charmingly is the author of Mark Twain: Boy of Old Missouri in this series.

Young Audubon first learned to love birds as a small boy in Haiti, the island in the West Indies that then belonged to France. From his window he would watch the gorgeously colored tropical birds in the mango trees. His seafaring father told him the swallows flew north to America after a visit to Haiti each year.

"When I grow up, I'm going to follow those birds to North America," he vowed.

More than ten years of his boyhood were spent in France where Captain Audubon took him and his little sister Rosa to live with their new stepmother. Part of the time he lived in Nantes, the lovely old city on the Loire River, and there, close under the eaves of the house, he found his friends the swallows. In the summer the family went to their country home, where little Jean roamed the fields and the woods to watch birds and to imitate their songs on his flute.

Always he was making pictures of them. At first his pictures looked lifeless and he was terribly discouraged.

"Birds are meant to be free!" he thought. "I must learn to make my birds like that—free, alive, moving!"

Every year he'd go over the pictures he'd drawn–and burn them. He would not keep one that was not perfectly right.

His father sent him to military school, but it was as wrong to confine this freedom-loving boy as to hold a wild bird in a cage.

At last his dream came true. He was going to America! A great adventure awaited him. 

From the dust jacket