Flying Home: Katherine Catmull’s “Summer and Bird”

Book: Summer and Bird

Author: Katherine Catmull

Pages: 344

Copy: advanced reader

Read: finished August 27

Spoilers: there isn’t a traditional happy ending: biggest spoiler

Katherine Catmull’s book is wonderful, from its fairy tale atmosphere to its snappy authorial asides.  While Summer and Bird is aimed at readers 10 and up, I think almost anyone could read this book happily (which means grown-ups can buy a hardcover that isn’t overpriced: yay!).  The sisters are realistic and complex, the book weaves between points of view delightfully, and the writing is beautiful.

I love this book enough that it is difficult to know where to begin.  I think one of the finest points about this book is its use of fairy tales and mythology.  Catmull borrows from multiple stories (I think—this may be a more straight-forward retelling of a story I just haven’t read—correct me if you know better), but most of all she captures the atmosphere.  It’s impossible to describe the proper fairy tale atmosphere exactly, but Catmull nails it.  She obviously knows her stuff.

Another important facet of this book is its accurate depiction of sisters.  Summer and Bird are not simple characters and their relationship is as complex as any real relationship.  There is jealousy, but there’s also real love and tenderness.  The two girls will always have to struggle to remain on good terms, but it’s obvious they will always try because they love each other.

The more I think about this book, the better it seems.  The ending is not the “Happily ever after” of Disney movies, but the more difficult salvaging of the pieces.  This book displays a deeply disrupted family that will never completely heal, and that impossibility makes the book all the better.  I think in some ways this book may help any child with a spilt family, if only because Catmull refuses to sugarcoat the difficulties of accepting a parent that has (hopefully inadvertently) caused pain.

Catmull’s use of birds is astounding.  She has an eye for details, carefully differentiating all the different types of birds and their different habits.  (Perhaps this book is a good way to encourage future birders!)  While few of the birds inhabit their real habitat, that Catmull even bothers to describe such diversity is refreshing.  (Some kind of environmental reading of this book would be very interesting to read, if incredibly difficult to undertake.)

This book is fantastic.  Go read it, immediately, while I try to come up with a review that is more articulate.  Maybe my second reading will let me describe it in a less dazed fashion.

--Benvolia