The Milk of Birds

June 1, 2013

Gr 8 Up-American eighth-grader K.C. struggles in school, her parents are divorced, and she feels like a failure next to her perfect brother. Nawra, 14, is illiterate and pregnant from a rape; she lives in an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Darfur. The girls get to know each other through a letter exchange organized by a charity working in Sudan. Their story is told through first-person narratives and their letters. Nawra describes the brutal violence taking place in her country and the terrible things that have happened to her and her extended family-homes have been destroyed, bombs dropped, and women and children have been forced to witness atrocities being inflicted on loved ones. Yet she is thankful to be alive and draws strength from her faith and the proverbial wisdom of her grandmother, which she routinely shares in her dictated letters. She is able to nurse her mother back to health and reaches out to help those around her in spite of her difficult circumstances. K.C.'s problems seem pale in comparison, but Whitman deftly puts both girls' concerns in the contexts of their very different worlds. K.C. becomes active at school in helping raise awareness and funds to help the people in the IDP camp. Nawra's flashbacks and the time lag between letters can make it difficult to understand the sequence of events, but the horrific happenings are easier to take in and process in the girls' back-and-forth exchanges. In the author's note, Whitman writes how she hoped her novel would be historical fiction by the time it was published. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Nonetheless, this powerful and important book has a lot to say to young people about seeing beyond their own struggles and opening their minds and hearts to others.-Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC

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