FIRST THERE WAS A BIRD is a coming-of-age story that tugs at the heartstrings. Author Linda Oatman High succeeds in conveying the grief, despair, and hope of a girl on the verge of teenagerhood.
Magnolia Lee Cooper is eleven years old and living in small-town Mississippi. She lost her father in a car accident, and her best friend has moved away. To make things worse, her mother, who runs the local beauty salon, has designs on Magnolia winning a beauty pageant—thereby following in a family tradition (on her mother’s side). There is an obvious push-pull element to the story: Magnolia’s late father valued her intelligence and tomboyish ways, while her mother places more emphasis on her femininity. The sense of expectations not met and obligations foisted on Magnolia by a parent who is tone-deaf to her daughter’s feelings is clearly drawn in the opening chapters: “I guess I should have been crowned Miss Beauty Queen Against My Will,” Magnolia opines at one point.
However, the focus of the story is the loss of the family cockatiel, Third Bird, due to Magnolia’s carelessness. When out looking for it, she runs into Jeremiah, a boy from Florida who is her own age and has also lost his father (shot by a vigilante). Together, the pair search for the cockatiel. Jeremiah is Black and Magnolia is white, and High introduces some commentary on what used to be called race relations. Magnolia’s mother is accused of prejudice, and the issue of slavery is brought up for discussion during a run-in with a criminal. Later, their search takes them to a store whose female owner presents as male, and another run by a disabled woman. Magnolia’s mother objects to these people.
There is, of course, something unsubtle about all this. In times not so far in the past, one would have been inclined to see some of these plot resolutions as trite. But in today’s chaotic cultural climate, it serves as a timely reminder that transformative change is possible, that people with deep-seated cultural differences can, in fact, live together, and that disparate backgrounds need not be a barrier to community. These days, that counts for a lot.
Written by Linda Oatman High, FIRST THERE WAS A BIRD is a coming-of-age tale that expatiates movingly on the issue of young grief with pertinent things to say about prejudice and difference.
~ Craig Jones for IndieReader