How To Make A Bird

by Martine Murray

Overview

A beautiful novel that captures the aching of a teenager ready to heal.

It's dawn, on an empty road in the countryside. Empty, except for the girl in the long, red evening gown, standing next to a bicycle, and looking back at the home she's about to leave. Mannie's ready to start a new life and forget the terrible things that have happened here, but there are questions that need to be answered before she can let go. Questions about her elegant but unstable mother, her brother who's always overshadowed her, and his friend Harry Jacob, who just might be Mannie's boyfriend . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545283120
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/2010
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Lexile:	790L (what's this?)
File size:	340 KB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Martine Murray is the author of THE SLIGHTLY TRUE STORY OF CEDAR B. HARTLEY, which received three starred reviews and was named to Booklist's roundup of Top Ten First Novels for Youth. She lives in Victoria, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

“Although Mannie’s defining attributes—acute self-consciousness and claustrophobic intensity—are hallmarks of many YA heroines, Murray’s powerful lyrical voice and close observation breathe new life into them. The story’s forward momentum is occasionally diverted by an outpouring of images and insights, but eventually Mannie and the readers get back on the road, and any detours just add to the pleasure. First published in Australia in 2003, the novel offers an especially vivid sense of place—the harsh but open rural landscape and densely populated yet lonely, urban Melbourne.” -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Murray’s style is crystalline and meditative . . . It’s crafted in polished and deftly spun prose. . . . Readers who appreciate style and mood even more than plot will be glad to find her.” -- Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"Murray crafts beautiful and evocative prose to mark each turn in Mannie’s inward and outward journeys, all while maintaining tension in revealing who, within the family, has departed and how. . . . Readers of John Marsden, Melina Marchetta, and Judith Clarke will find a welcome addition to the pantheon of Australian young-adult authors." -- Booklist

From the Publisher

Gr 9 Up—Fed up with her boring country life and thrown off-kilter by recent family tragedies, 17-year-old Mannie dons her mother's long red dress, boards a train to Melbourne, and sets off into the world planning to get as far away from her everyday existence as possible. Though she starts her journey feeling sure that she is doing right by herself, she encounters memories from her past that tug at her heart and shake her resolve. Should she truly move on to become a new version of herself or go back home and make the best of her situation? The transitions between Mannie's present day and past are integrated seamlessly. The time period is the late '70s, but this is only revealed in small hints (e.g., a passing mention that Star Wars is in theaters). The story itself, while well written, is not exciting, and Mannie is not easy to identify with. The only scenes evoking any emotion are the ones with her Grandmother Ivy, and when she recounts her brother's death. Despite the author's ability as a wordsmith, readers are not likely to stick with this story to the end.—Melyssa Malinowski, Parkville High School, Baltimore, MD

School Library Journal

Setting off at dawn, carrying a backpack and wearing a long evening gown, Mannie aims to escape her troubled life in small-town southern Australia. It will take the entire novel, with abundant flashbacks, to explain why. Mannie has fashioned an identity, a narrative of herself and her future, from her beliefs about her gentle Australian father, flamboyant but unhappy French mother, older brother, Eddie-her mother's favorite-and his friend Harry. In the 24 hours that elapse after she leaves, Mannie's assumptions come undone and that personal narrative falls apart. Although Mannie's defining attributes-acute self-consciousness and claustrophobic intensity-are hallmarks of many YA heroines, Murray's powerful lyrical voice and close observation breathe new life into them. The story's forward momentum is occasionally diverted by an outpouring of images and insights, but eventually Mannie and the readers get back on the road, and any detours just add to the pleasure. First published in Australia in 2003, the novel offers an especially vivid sense of place-the harsh but open rural landscape and densely populated yet lonely, urban Melbourne. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews