Extraordinary Birds is a sad story about a young girl who has clearly had a traumatic start to life, but it is also a story of hope and about learning how to trust again.
In Extraordinary Birds, we meet December, a young girl who knows everything there is to know about birds. She also knows everything about being kicked out of foster homes. Being moved from foster family to foster family with no-one yet able to understand her and help her.
All that she has of her birth mum is the book she left behind, The Complete Guide to Birds, Volume One, and a photo with a message: ‘In flight is where you’ll find me.’
December knows that she is truly a bird, just waiting for the day that she will transform, be able to fly away and be reunited with her mum. The scar on her back must be where her wings have started to grow and will burst out from when she is ready. She just needs to practise and find the right tree.
When December moves in with Eleanor, a taxidermist and volunteer at a local wildlife sanctuary, a foster placement that her social worker, Adrian, thinks will work out for her, but then again, he always says “this one is going to be good…”
As we journey with December we begin to understand a little of the traumas she suffered and the effect that it has had on her outlook. She doesn’t see the point in making friends because she won’t around for very long; foster placements always end.
One of the books most powerful themes is trust; learning to trust in the kindness of a new family, learning to trust in new friends and allowing them to trust in you. I thought this was perfectly captured in the relationship between December and a red-tailed hawk, Henrietta, that needs to be nursed back to health. December’s support and care for the nervous hawk through the book echoes her own need to trust in those who are caring for and supporting her nursing back to emotional and relational health.
Another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was the language of birds and bird life that Sandy Stark-McGinnis has layered through the story. I particularly liked the description of some unkind girls moving across the playground as a murmuration, like how starlings twist and turn together in flight, except “these girl’s unifying patterns have an ugliness to them…”
Aimed at 9 years+, this would be a great story to explore in discussions about empathy and the impact that past experiences can have.
I really enjoyed Extraordinary Birds and found it powerful, thought-provoking, and hopeful. in December, Sandy Stark-McGinnis has created an endearing character that, as a reader, you want to give the love and care that she needs to flourish and… fly!
This is Sandy Stark-McGinnis’ debut book and you can find out more about her here.
It will be published by Bloomsbury on 30th April 2019
ISBN: 9781526603159
Many thanks to Bloomsbury Children’s Books for sending me a copy to review.
If you liked this, you might also like to read our review of The Middler by Kirsty Applebaum
This Book is Brilliant! 