Bird

Bird
Johnson, Angela. 2004. Bird. New York: Dial Books. ISBN 0803728476.

PLOT SUMMARY
Thirteen-year-old "Bird" is determined to find her stepfather and return him to the house she shares with her mother in Cleveland, Ohio. So much so, that she's willing to hop a bus and track him down in Alabama, where she hides out in a shed hoping to find him. She finds Cecil, but perhaps Cecil is not the key to her happiness. Perhaps she carries that key within herself.

Bird is told through the voices of three struggling young teens, Bird, Jay and Ethan, whose lives converge and become entwined in the small town of Acorn, Alabama. As their stories unfold, the mystery of their connection unravels and the light of possibility enters each of their lives.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Angela Johnson's Bird succeeds on many levels, outweighing its shortcomings. Bird, the 13-year-old runaway, is a warm and caring character that will have readers caring about her, however, the plot is contrived and as Hornbook noted, occasionally vague in details. Bird travels to Alabama to find Cecil, the stepfather who abandoned her and her mother in Cleveland. Her trip takes her to Alabama, where she hides out in the shed of Cecil's nephew, Ethan. Ethan is aware of her existence but not of her relation to him. The reader also is unaware of this connection for several chapters, making Bird's choice of this particular shed perplexing Ethan is a fragile boy with a recent heart transplant. Conveniently, the brother of the donor, Jay, is also a young teen in the same town. Again, the connection between the two is not fully disclosed. In another convenient connection, Bird also takes refuge in the home of an elderly widow with a connection to Jay, a troubled teen under house arrest.

Despite these contrivances, Bird, Jay, and Ethan are well-developed characters, each speaking in his own voice, each struggling with difficulties beyond those of the average teen. Bird's father is deceased and her stepfather has left her. Ethan struggles with his health and frequent disappearances of the wandering Cecil. Jay struggles with the loss of his brother and the knowledge that his brother's heart lives on in another boy. Angela Johnson is able to offer insight into the seemingly arbitrary and sometimes contradictory acts of young teens - Jay's frequent escapes from house arrest, Bird's intrusion into Ethan's home, Ethan's silence on Bird's existence. The greatest success of Bird is it's uplifting tone. Bird, Ethan, and Jay don't evoke the reader's pity, only empathy and understanding. While the mechanics of the plot may be manufactured, the protagonists are not. The three teens are believable and likable. The ending is not neat and orderly, but rather a gradual realization that some events in life must be accepted before one can move on.

Although Angela Johnson is a well-known African American author, Bird transcends race. The cover art depicts a young black girl's legs as she sits in a tree, and there are slight references to Bird's braids and subsequent Afro hairstyle, but there are very few other race-related references. Bird, Jay, and Ethan could be teens of any race or ethnicity. In Bird, it is the stories of the children that matter, not their race.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
All three introspective teens seem mature beyond their years, even when they do stupid things (such as riding along in a stolen car), and Johnson's lyric touch occasionally lapses into twee moments (as when Ethan spies Bird dancing in the moonlight on his family's property). But the overwhelming kindness of these characters (Ethan keeps Bird's secret, Ethan's parents plant flowers, without explanation, in Jay's yard) trumps the occasional lapses in verisimilitude.

2004. "BIRD (Book)." Publishers Weekly 251, no. 42: 65-65. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 19, 2007).

Some key conversations apparently happen offstage, and it can be frustrating to discover, for instance, that Bird knows about Ethan's medical history when we didn't see her receive the information. Nevertheless, these interwoven stories, strong and intriguing on their own, are all the more powerful for how they fit together.

Heppermann, Christine M. 2004. "Bird (Book)." Horn Book Magazine 80, no. 5: 587-588. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 19, 2007).

CONNECTIONS
A responsible connection to a reading of Bird would be a discussion on the real-life dangers that face runaways. Explain that "artistic license" allows Bird's experiences to be different than those faced by real teens.

Suggest other Angela Johnson titles, especially,
Heaven, the 1999 Coretta Scott King Award winner and The First Part Last.

Check the link to Angela Johnson from the African American Literature Book Club site, http://aalbc.com/authors/angela.htm