Readers of Carl Hiaasen and Katherine Applegate will likely enjoy The Secret Language of Birds by Lynne Kelly. Set in Houston, Texas, Kelly’s novel for middle grade readers features thirteen-year-old Nina whose parents are investment bankers. Nina spends her time immersed in her birding apps, but flounders when it comes to making friends, believing she was absent on the day any instruction manuals were handed out. For example, although she tries to befriend Iris, a hearing impaired classmate, she fails in that attempt.
When Nina’s older sister Sage encounters the concept of zugunruhe and its impact on the bird brain, she wonders if something inside the human brain might work similar to the migration instinct. “[That migratory restlessness is] in there somewhere, telling us . . . that there’s somewhere else we’re supposed to be” (16). Given this insight, Sage suggests that for the summer Nina might consider going somewhere, like to attend Aunt Audrey’s camp in Bee Holler, about a two-hour drive from home.
Even though Audrey is considered an “odd duck” by the family, Nina’s parents agree that Nina can enroll. Once in Bee Holler, Nina bonds with Aunt Audrey but feels out of place among the other campers and asks to return home. Because Mother isn’t immediately available to provide transportation, Nina discovers that she does in fact fit in with the Oddballs, three other girls who are at camp for the first year in their age group, as well. So, she decides to remain.
After bonding over a trip to the camp’s haunted infirmary and spotting a large, white bird, Nina and the other Oddballs—Ant, Georgia, and Emma—work in shifts to collect trail camera footage to monitor what Nina has identified as a rare whooping crane. However, since the marshy location actually lies beyond the camp’s boundaries, the girls are taking the risk of getting in trouble. Despite her knowledge about respecting boundaries, Nina feels that documenting the behavior of one of the rarest birds in the country might be a really important and forgivable reason for crossing that line.
Between collecting camera footage and data from in-person sitings, Kelly pens various bird metaphors to creatively keep readers intrigued while also building the character of Nina and her interest in birds. For instance, the murmuration of starlings shows how peers influence behavior: “I thought of those starlings again, and the way they stayed together by watching the birds around them, adjusting their position to get back on course if they started to drift from the flock” (56).
Another analogy comes on a nature hike while campers are trying to decipher various bird calls. One of the camp counsellors, Libby explains: “Sometimes you have to get quiet and stop listening to all the noise. Then what’s really important will stand out. Good rule for life, too” (82).
Eventually, Ant, Georgia, Emma, and Nina determine the presence of a second crane—this one without a band or tracker—and the Oddballs embark on a mission to solve the mystery. From where did this mama crane come? Why don’t Odetta and her crew with the whooping crane program at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries have record of this bird?
Beyond threading the novel with biology facts about whooping crane populations, nesting practices, voiceprints, and habitat information to maintain a bird conservation theme, Kelly includes significant facts about the human needs for fitting in and for leaving a legacy behind. Nina calls this “leaving a fossil” so that people would know we were here on earth. About fitting in, Aunt Audrey tells her niece: “If I don’t fit in somewhere, it means that isn’t the place for me” (195), thereby giving Nina permission to find comfort in her own “oddball” ways and to follow her zugunruhe signals.
Other lessons come from the discourse community of scientists, who believe that it’s okay to not know everything. “That way there’s always more to discover” (182), and from the artists, who know the therapeutic power of creating and making art.
- Posted by Donna