One Bird
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
I try to see him among a migrating flock--he will take the loneliness of my room on his long journey; each whistling note he makes will be a little of my sadness falling over the ocean, to be swallowed in the clash of waves and the commotion of many birds flying.
"Tell me the truth," demands fifteen-year-old Megumi Shimizu as her mother hurriedly packs. But her mother refuses to admit that she is leaving forever--leaving her husband to his mistress, her home to her silent, resentful mother-in-law, her daughter to survive, if she can. Angry at everyone's polite lies, Megumi realizes that she has a secret of her own: Even though she goes to church, to Bible study class, and to the Christian Girls' Academy, she no longer believes in God. Only Dr. Mizutani, the "spinster lady" veterinarian, tells the truth, and she warns that single birds without their mothers often die.
In One Bird, a coming-of-age novel about mothers and daughters, about best friends, boyfriends, and families, Kyoko Mori uses folktales, images of birds, and details of bird life to explore the bonds of love that go deeper than lies. As Megumi learns how to care for injured waxwings, crows, sparrows, and one abandoned grosbeak, she begins her own flight toward truth, and toward home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Writing with her startling combination of delicacy in observing moods and incisiveness in defining individual actions, Mori revisits the premise of her first novel, Shizuko's Daughter. Once again an adolescent heroine must cope with a mother's desertion and the disgrace it causes in 1970s Japan-this time, however, the mother has not committed suicide but sought a separation from her husband. Custom dictates that she forfeit her right to see her child, 15-year-old Megumi, even though she is a devoted parent and even though Megumi's openly unfaithful father is frequently absent. Megumi navigates through her anger and frustration and, with the help of strong friends, quietly supplants prevailing conventions with her own sense of what is right and just. While initial passages and conflicts threaten to overwhelm the narrative with metaphors (e.g., Megumi nurses an injured bird back to health, then sets it free), the novel builds in momentum, gaining in complexity as it progresses. Even so, the finest element here is neither the plot nor the characters, but the keenly observed atmosphere. It is the portrait of Japan, thoughtfully probed for its ironies, that will linger with the reader. Ages 12-up.
