{"id":37704,"date":"2022-08-20T22:13:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T02:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=37704"},"modified":"2022-08-20T22:13:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T02:13:22","slug":"review-of-birdie-and-me-by-j-m-m-nuanez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=37704","title":{"rendered":"Review of Birdie and Me, by J. M. M. Nuanez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Birdie and Me<\/em><\/p>\n

by J. M. M. Nuanez<\/p>\n

Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin Random House), 2020. 252 pages.
\nReview written May 13, 2020, from a library book.<\/p>\n

As Birdie and Me<\/em> opens, a girl named Jack and her little brother Birdie have to move from Uncle Carl\u2019s apartment to their Uncle Patrick\u2019s home. It\u2019s been decided that Uncle Carl isn\u2019t responsible enough to take care of them, since he\u2019d been letting them miss too many days of school. But Uncle Patrick\u2019s older and doesn\u2019t make them feel welcome. All Jack and Birdie really want to do is go back to Portland, Oregon, where they lived with their Mama.<\/p>\n

But Mama died ten months ago, and they didn\u2019t get to stay there in Portland with their elderly neighbor for long. To make matters worse, Birdie\u2019s new teacher tells Uncle Patrick that Birdie is disruptive wearing skirts and sparkly purple clothes to school.<\/p>\n

This book is about Jack figuring out how to cope with all this. She makes some plans, which don\u2019t often go as she likes, but she makes some new connections as well.<\/p>\n

This was a sad book to me \u2013 I don\u2019t like that they lost their Mama. But given that context, I appreciated these characters and their realistic ways of coping. Nobody really got things right on their first try \u2013 but that was realistic, and we saw people learning and giving each other grace.<\/p>\n

I did enjoy gender-nonconforming Birdie. When he is forced to go shopping for more conforming boys\u2019 clothes, he decides he\u2019s shopping for someone named Norman, who is his exact size. It\u2019s not a perfect solution, but it does get them through the episode. Some of the ways people treated him were painful to see (and made me mad his Mama was gone), but may some kids learn empathy by seeing the situation through the eyes of his sister.<\/p>\n

jmmnuanez.com<\/a>
\npenguin.com\/middle-grade<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

This review is only on the blog.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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