In my house we wield silence like shields and swords: we use it to push people away or injure them.Īs Jewel feels unseen and unwanted by her family, she creates her own secret places to withdraw herself to. Chan aptly uses the theme of the family’s silence to explore human communication, for better and for worse, as a healing power, but also as a weapon:

They live together in murderous silence and misunderstanding, isolated from other people. John, nicknamed “Bird”, fell off a cliff the day Jewel was born and his death encumbers Jewel and her family ever since. She is largely ignored and left to her own devices by her embittered and grieving parents and grandfather, who are devastated by the death of Jewel’s 5 year old brother. Jewel, the 12 year old narrator is a bright young girl of mixed origins with a passion for geology, living in Caledonia, Iowa. Feeling privileged by observing this breathtaking moment of consciousness-raising on the power of words with these 13 year old boys, I optimistically got home with a broad smile on my face, enjoying once more the connectedness books induce between people. They were genuinely amazed by the artful skills of the writer, the credible evocation of a world entirely unfamiliar to them (what magic does Chan use that I actually believe this weird story could have happened for real, one of them exclaimed). I was delighted this sublime debut novel really resonated with the boys in the YA discussion group I had been assisting. Bird pleasantly surprised me: I wouldn’t have picked a novel dealing with intense emotions like anger, loneliness and grief responding to the loss of a child, about grief, guilt and remorse freezing the affected family spontaneously. This was the 7th out of 8 novels that were selected for the KJV contest 2015-2016 and by far one of the finest young adult novels of the selection.

Where was all this joy, and where does joy go when it leaves your family? Does it goes to someone else’s family, soak into the earth, or does it dissolve away like your breath in the winter? And if it doesn’t leave like this, then why isn’t there any left for me?

Joy is like a child… You feed it or it dies.

Bird by crystal chan summary