Before you read this book you might like to listen to Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan because this is the song that forms the background of Pablo's life with Emmanuel.
As a tiny baby Pablo washed up on the beach of an island named Isla. The baby was in a small blow-up swimming pool with a lavender parrot. Fast forward and Pablo is turning ten. That day he arrived there had been a tropical storm with strong winds. The local weather reporter calls these 'the winds of change' and they haven't been seen on Isla for nearly ten years. According to local legend 'winds of change mean fortune lost or fortune gained'. Pablo is about to turn ten. It is predicted the winds are coming. Pablo is upset with all the speculations about his origins. This birthday he is questioning everything, and he wants to know the truth.
Pablo's best friend is Birdy. She is a parrot who washed up with him all those years ago and she is his protector, but she cannot fly and she cannot 'talk'. The tourist industry of Isla is built around another legendary parrot called the Seafaring Parrot or Seafarer.
"Reported sightings of Seafarers were very rare, and only when the winds of change were blowing. ... But the most unusual trait of the Seafaring Parrots, according to legend, had to do with sound. Sounds exist in vibrations ... Humans with their unexceptional ears, could hear a sound at the moment it was made, and thereafter only in memory. But not the remarkable Seafaring Parrot. For them, all sound lived on for all eternity ... at any given moment a seafarer could hear and reproduce all the sounds ever made. The laughter of everyone who ever lived. The cries of everyone who ever lived."
There are deeper themes in this book about migration and home and belonging:
"Emmanuel, why did you family leave Cuba? ... 'For the same reason that most people leave their hoe, Pablito ... To make a new life somewhere.' 'But why?' Padlo persisted. 'Why would anyone want to leave their home?' ... 'It's not always a question of want, my boy. Countries can be like families. Sometimes they argue with other countries, or the people in one country argue with each other. Things turn out bad. Life can feel impossible, whether because there's no way to make a living or there's war or, for whatever reason, they don't feel free."
I also loved the parallel story of the stray dog that Pablo eventually rescues. It always warms my heart when a dirty tangled haired stray is washed and fed and cared for. Alison McGhee gives her readers little fragments of the back story of this little dog but at the end we never really know how he came to be on Isla and how is arrival is at exactly the right time for Pablo.
Here are some comprehension and vocabulary questions.
I read so many books one of my strategies to keep their plot lines clear in my mind is by try to avoid reading books with similar plot lines one after the other. With Pablo and Birdy I broke this rule - albeit unintentionally. My post yesterday talks about The What on Earth Institute of Wonder by Lisa Nicol. That book has so much in common with Pablo and Birdy:
- Both stories have a child who has be sent a special bird
- The child can communicate with their bird but others cannot
- The bird in both stories is rare and somehow living in the wrong place
- Spoken or unspoken the bird offers wisdom
- Both contain specific pieces of music
- Themes of rescue and belonging underpin both stories
I picked Pablo and Bird up at a charity book sale. It was published in 2017. It is still available. I probably won't keep this hardcover copy because I noticed it has become a little mouldy which is a shame.
Companion books:
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