OF A FEATHER

A relationship between a young owl and a young girl helps them both confront their fears.

Reenie is taken away from her grandmother’s house by social services after a fight between her grandmother and her grandmother’s boyfriend endangers her. Reenie has been through this before—when her mother’s depression is bad enough, she has to be hospitalized, leaving Reenie at the mercy of social services. This time she is delivered to Beatrice, a great-aunt she has never met. Beatrice turns out to be a master falconer, and Reenie, despite her overall mistrust of adults, is intrigued. When a young, undernourished owl ends up in a hawk trap by mistake, Reenie convinces Beatrice to bring the owl, whom she names Rufus, back to the house. The story is narrated in alternating first-person chapters from the points of view of Rufus and Reenie, with both protagonists having distinctive, plausible voices. Even before he is caught in the trap, Rufus suffers from a debilitating lack of confidence, being second-hatched and therefore smaller and weaker, which he overcompensates for by (often amusing) deliberations and conjectures. Reenie’s distrust of emotional closeness is deftly played with well-reasoned plot developments. Set in Vermont, the story is fleshed out by thought-provoking forays into the ethics of hunting and the powerlessness of children in determining their home lives. Reenie is in the sixth grade and reads as White.

Unusual and poignant—full of the depth and contradictions of life.