Birdy Flynn

March 15, 2017
Donohoe's title character is a modern addition to tragic white butches of the past in this bleak debut set in 1980s England.Birdy has a lot to deal with. Trouble with neighborhood kids. Casual racism amid conflict with the Irish Republican Army and in the Falklands. A crush on a teacher ending in attempted sexual assault. Her conscience haunted by her failure to prevent the brutal murder of the family's cat. Squeamish readers who want to move past memories of the black-and-white pet cannot, with her family hoping she comes home even as her blood is literally on Birdy's clothes. The world seems confusing and murky from Birdy's perspective, mimicking her necessary dissociation from assorted traumas--most of which are persistent tropes in stories about gender-nonconforming youth. Readers are left wondering if Birdy finds a clearer sense of self; she enjoys being taken for a boy but resents harassment from peers about getting a -sex change.- Labels aren't always the answer, but this ambiguity precludes a more powerful resolution. Birdy experiences gender dysphoria, but readers can only speculate if that would ease with medical transition, with community among masculine women, or some other path. While her story ends with support and hope for the future, it's unclear what that future will be. Reminiscent of older lesbian fiction, this novel will satisfy readers with a taste for queer angst--but they really need to want it. (Fiction. 14-adult)

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March 1, 2017

Gr 8 Up-A coming-of-age tale set in the 1980s London suburbs. Birdy Flynn loves to hang out with the guys from school, but when they torture and kill his grandmother's cat, he chooses not to tell his family why the animal is missing. The secrets in his life pile on top of one another until he decides to come clean to his parents. Birdy is transgender and identifies as male, but about a third of the way into the narrative it is apparent that he was assigned female at birth and that he is not out to his friends or family. While on a school trip, he is attacked by a female teacher. This secret weighs on him as much as the truth about his grandmother's cat, until he finds another student who has also been assaulted. The violent death of a cat, which opens this book, will be too graphic for some readers. The early 1980s setting may make this novel difficult for some teens to follow. This slice-of-life story is slowly paced, while the third-person narration distances readers from Birdy and what is going on in his head. VERDICT Fans of 1980s fiction should try Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park instead. For titles about transgender children, select Meredith Russo's If I Was Your Girl or Donna Gephart's Lily and Dunkin.-Jenni Frencham, Columbus Public Library, WI

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April 15, 2017
Grades 6-9 Twelve-year-old Birdy thinks of herself as one of the boys she hangs out withuntil the day one of them kicks her neighbor's cat half to death and, to stop its suffering, Birdy drowns it. Desperate to keep her action a secret, she distances herself from the boys who, she fears, might betray her secret. It's no secret, however, that she continues to dress like a boy, fight like one, and delight in strangers mistaking her for one. Birdy's struggle with gender identity is sufficient story for one novel, but there is enough plot here for two, as the story shifts to the girl's relationship with her favorite teacher, who, to Birdy's horror, forces her to touch her inappropriately. Meanwhile, Birdy's mother's Irish ancestry becomes an issue: it makes her and her children anathema in 1980s England, when IRA bombings were frequent occurrences. Though this might have been an even stronger book with less to manage, first-time novelist Donohoe handles the material skillfully.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)