• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Making It Up

as we go along

  • Home education: facts and contacts.
  • About me/contact.
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate links and disclosure policy.
    • Read52 – the challenge and the books.

Bird by Crystal Chan

13th August 2014 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

image

buy on Kindle

There are some books I’m sent to review that I desperately want to read but I’m scared to, for one reason or another. Bird is one of those.

I love how it looks. And the feather that I was sent with it. But the excerpt on the cover is stark and unforgiving and I was scared it would be too traumatic, too emotional.

Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John. His name was John until Grandpa said he looked more like a Bird with the way he kept jumping off things, and the name stuck. Bird’s thick, black hair poked out in every direction, just like the head feathers of the blackbirds, Grandpa said, and he bet that one day Bird would fly like one too. Grandpa kept talking like that, and no one paid him much notice until Bird jumped off a cliff, the cliff at the edge of the tallgrass prairie, the cliff that dropped a good couple hundred feet to a dried-up riverbed below. From that day on, Grandpa never spoke another word. Not one.

The day that Bird tried to fly, the grown-ups were out looking for him – all of them except Mom and Granny. That’s because that very day, I was born.’

I don’t like books about children dying. Or siblings dying. And yet I keep reading them. This isn’t a book about grief, and yet it is. There’s a lot that goes over my head about beliefs and so on, but that might be because I don’t quite have the context. Telling us this is the only mixed race family in a particular environment doesn’t mean so much when there’s not that much about the environment. Or perhaps the dissociation is intended to underline the differences?

For me though, the strength of the book is in the development of the family relationships and the main character, Jewel. She’s at a breaking point, growing up, and that forces changes throughout her broken and battered family, as well as beyond it. There’s no magic wand, quick resolution or instant happy ending, but it’s still a book that feels complete, and that I feel I may well return to, as I think there’s more in there that I’ve probably not absorbed in this first reading.

For me it brings to mind To kill a mockingbird, Wonder, and Roll of thunder, hear my cry. Perhaps not an intuitive selection of recommended reading, but the ones that I feel will complement or extend it.

Tweet

Filed Under: It's where it is Tagged With: bird, crystal Chan

About Jax Blunt

I'm the original user, Jax Blunt I've been blogging for 16 years, give or take, and if you want to know me, read me :)

Oh, and if you'd like to support my artistic endeavours, shop my photographs and art at redbubble

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Susan Mann says

    14th August 2014 at 10:27 pm

    Interesting book. Wouldn’t be one I’d normally pick up x

    Reply
    • Jax Blunt says

      15th August 2014 at 10:13 am

      I don’t think I would have picked it up if I hadn’t been sent it, but I’m glad I did.

      Reply
  2. Veens @ Our Ordinary Life says

    15th August 2014 at 12:31 am

    The cover of the book is stunning and yes, I would not pick this book up! But I am adding it to our wishlist!

    Reply
    • Jax Blunt says

      15th August 2014 at 10:13 am

      The feather isn’t part of the cover, but it’s stunning without it. I hope you enjoy it if and when you do read it.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Susan Mann Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Archives

Categories

Affiliate search on bookshop

Footer

TOTS100 - UK Parent Blogs
TOTS100

Copyright © 2021 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in