Mercy's Birds

Learning to accept help can be the hardest lesson of all.

Mercy doesn’t have your average family, but it’s the only one she’s ever known. She, her mother Pearl, and her aunt Moo move from one falling-down rental house to another. Somehow they’ve always managed to get by, but lately things seem to be spinning out of control. Why is Pearl growing smaller, saying less and less as she retreats to the security of her bedroom? Why is her aunt growing larger and noisier as she reads fortunes in teacups and tarot cards and palms? And while Mercy tries to keep up at school and with her job, she lives in fear of the day Barry, Moo’s boyfriend, comes back to live with them all.

VOYA

A fifteen-year-old girl learns to accept her dysfunctional family in this multi-generational novel set in Canada. Stubborn Mercy lives with her mother and aunt in a run-down rental house where all three women pretend their problems do not exist. Mercy has cut her strawberry blonde hair and dyed it black and taken to wearing only black clothing. Mercy's frail and bitter mother, Pearl, is unemployed; eccentric Aunt Moo is a fortuneteller. Looming over these characters and their situation is Aunt Moo's boyfriend, Barry. Mercy fears Barry because of the sexual advances he has made toward her but she is afraid to tell her aunt or mother because they need Barry's rent money. Mercy takes a job at a florist shop. Vince, the owner, and his mother, Mama Gio, like Mercy despite her appearance and it is their friendship that serves as one of the catalysts to help Mercy more easily accept her family. Mama Gio and Pearl's mother, whom Mercy affectionately calls the Queen of Cups, are two strong female characters who support Mercy when her mother is hospitalized after a drug overdose. Mercy gains enough confidence to stand up to Barry to prevent further advances from him, Pearl recovers and returns home, and Vince befriends Aunt Moo. The story ends with Vince and Aunt Moo making plans for all of them to open a bakery near the florist shop. The novel's positive ending is refreshing but not trite, and the strength revealed in the Queen of Cups and Mama Gio offers a good message to young adults who may not always value the wisdom found in older adults. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Broad general YA appeal, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9).

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Linda Holeman had always dreamed of becoming an author. Her first writing success came when she was in grade 5. A story she had written was aired on the CBC radio program “Story Broadcast Journal” and she still has a copy of the booklet it was published in.

Her career has included stints as a classroom and resource teacher and an adult workshop instructor. Her first published work as an adult was a collection of short stories called Saying Good-bye in 1995. She is the author of Frankie on the Run, a picture book and Flying to Yellow and The Devil’s Darning Needle, two collections of short stories for adults. Her fiction and non-fiction pieces have appeared in numerous anthologies.

Both Promise Song, her first young adult novel and Mercy’s Birds, her second, were selected for Books for the Teen Age lists by The New York Public Library. Her third YA novel, Raspberry House Blues, was published in Fall 2000 to excellent reviews. All three novels feature strong female teen protagonists and have been praised for the true representation of character, and especially, dialogue. Search of the Moon King’s Daughter is a new work of historical fiction, already being well received. Linda Holeman lives in Winnipeg.