Parents' Guide to The Someday Birds

This colorful adventure with a lot of heart gives voice to a couple of unlikely heroes. In The Someday Birds, author Sally J. Pla creates a memorable narrator who has more quirks than even he can catalog. And Charlie is a cataloguer of many things -- birds being his main preoccupation. Clean bathrooms, chicken nuggets, names he has been called, and strange smells also make the list. The lovely thing about Pla's writing is that Charlie's abnormality is perfectly normal to him. He struggles to maintain acceptable behavior, knowing that he will be ridiculed for any outbursts. But he grows, and readers are privy to that growth without getting hit over the head by it. When Charlie's dad is transferred from San Diego to a hospital in Virginia, Charlie finds himself on the ride of his life. His siblings are on their own rides as well, growing in their own ways.

It's a colorful story with plot twists that are incredible, yet believable. What surprises the most is that at its heart, The Someday Birds is very much about the effects of war. All of the characters in the book have been touched by it. Though war happens somewhere else, or in a different time, its reach is felt. Survival is a theme here, and beyond that thriving as a unique member of a group provides a thrumming message of hope. Like a harbinger of spring flitting through a gray sky, The Someday Birds is a welcome arrival.