FLYING BLIND

A formal-voiced macaw tells the opening chapter of this affecting tale about an unusual family and a predicament of egrets. In 1891, a traveling elocutionist/salesman adopts an abandoned baby, sparking jealousy in his cocky bird Murphy. Thirteen years later, the baby has grown into thoughtful Ben, skeptical of the elixir his father sells and unsure of his own path in life. When Murphy (who is psychic as well as endearingly haughty) feels a call from birds in Florida, the wagon heads there and discovers that entire rookeries of nesting egrets are being massacred for the money their feathers bring. Ben wrestles with this horror, as he becomes friends with two dirt-poor children who have no other way to survive. Difficult issues of morality and family weave themselves between the alternated voices of Ben and Murphy, who may have more in common than either would care to admit. Thoughtful. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)