Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom
2021 / 328 Pages
Rating: GOOD/Great/Give
 
This page-turner takes place in the Pacific Northwest, a little north of Seattle, and tells the story of two girls who have lost their way in wildernesses of their own making.

Ten-year-old Aggie accidentally sets fire to her home and is sure she has killed her parents. So, she flees into the forest where she puts the survival skills taught by her dad into practice. Climbing trees is her passion and finding bird nests with eggs waiting to hatch gives her joy but she has been forbidden by her unstable mother to continue climbing. Celia is 16 years old and has to spend the summer with her grandma instead of going to Lake Chelan with her father.  She meets a very handsome farm hand and falls in love with him but this relationship is a disaster waiting to happen. Aggie’s autistic brother, Burnaby, carefully gathers bones of birds that have died and threads their skeletons back together.  He becomes a healing balm for troubled Celia.

Cautions include a few instances of impolite language, a section where Celia and a boy are beginning something they shouldn’t but steer clear, and one time there’s the threat of rape, though not the act.

This is quite the touching story about anger, rebellion, forgiveness, and redemption. However, because of the mentioned subject matter I would recommend it only for the mature reader.