James Burdell lives with his car mechanic dad. They have a good relationship but as you read this book you will wish James could talk more with his dad - he desperately needs to understand why his mother left when he was very small. James has a very active mind. He remembers overheard conversations and fragments of phrases uttered by the adults in his life, but he constantly misinterprets these. James lives in a small town called Denham - I think it might be in Victoria. He and his best friend Sugar Boy spend their time after school and on weekends mucking around on their bikes, chasing trains and fishing. At school James is always getting into trouble - he is either daydreaming about birds or causing trouble to get a laugh out of his classmates. The teachers know he is a bright boy but they are running out of patience with his bad behaviour.
Birds are an obsession for James. Several years ago when he was with his dad in an op shop, he spied a book - Birds: A Field Guide. This book becomes his comfort. He almost memorizes the whole thing and when he is upset or confused or in trouble, he takes out his drawing book and sketches the birds from his book. In his mind the author is a hero and so James hatches a plan to meet AP Davies. The back cover says the author lives in The Blue Mountains. James has no idea where that is but when he is told his very best friend Sugar Boy is moving to Broome in Western Australia, James decides he needs to find AP Davies. He is sure leaving will make things easier for his dad who struggles to 'make ends meet.'
"I did know I was having big dreams, and big dreams aren't the way things actually are - but why was it better to stick with the way things actually are when big dreams felt so much better? Look what AP Davies did - he lived in mountains that glowed blue and spent all his time doing bird study."
Helping in a school library at the end of last year I spied Bird and Sugar Boy by Sofie Laguna. Parts of this story have lingered with me since I first read it in 2006. When I read My Brother Ben and also The Someday Birds I struggled to think of the title of Bird and Sugar Boy but I was certain it also contained a story about a boy who loved birds and who owned a precious bird guidebook.
But the blurb did not help me: Sugar boy gave me the name Bird, otherwise I'm James Burdell. I live with my dad who has a big tattoo that says Live to Ride. He is so strong he can lift up a car, but he can't tell me what he's thinking. Maybe he's thinking about my mother who shot through. Sugar Boy is my best friend. We hang around down at the river, in the bush tunnel, or beside the railway tracks riding our bikes fast enough to beat the train. There's only two of us, but we're the whole team. I don't know what would happen if I didn't have Sugar Boy.
This afternoon I re-read Bird and Sugar Boy from cover to cover. It is long out of print, but it might still be in a school library. I was surprised by the scenes I had forgotten and delighted to find scenes I had remembered especially the ones near the end of the story when James (Bird) finds himself in the city at night with no money, no food and desperate to find the right train to the elusive "Blue Mountains." I was also surprised by the fairly strong language used in this story - I think perhaps I read with a different eye now. This book is almost a Young Adult title and so I would say 11+. I wish I had kept my old copies of Magpies magazine because this book was featured on the cover of May vol. 21 no. 2 2006; page 16 with a review by Agnes Nieuwenhuizen. Oh, and yes this was the book I struggled to think of featuring a bird guidebook and a journey of discovery by a young boy.
Bird and Sugar Boy was a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) Younger Readers Honour book in 2007. Here are the comments by the judges:
When his best friend Sugar Boy moves interstate with his family, Bird is devastated. The consequent feeling of rejection causes him to revisit the pain of his mother’s departure earlier in his life. The resulting intensity and struggle of his father’s devotion becomes apparent when he takes off to the Blue Mountains and is located by the network of biker friends. Bird’s obsession with Davis’s Field Guide to Birds of Australia, along with his skill in drawing and the positive support from his science teacher, offer great hope for him. Realistic depiction of male characters who are friends rather than mates is sympathetically done by this author.
The winner in 2007 was Being Bee by Catherine Bateson. Just for interest the Picture Book winner that year was The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
Here are some other books by Sofie Laguna:
No comments:
Post a Comment