What The Birds See

Entwining a tale of missing children with the story of a lonely little boy, Sonya Hartnett captures the tenderness and dread of childhood in a work of exceptional storytelling.

The year is 1977, and Adrian is nine. He lives with his gran and his uncle Rory. His best friend is Clinton Tull. Adrian loves to draw, and he wants a dog. He’s afraid of quicksand, shopping centers, and self-combustion. But as closely as he watches his suburban world, there is much he cannot understand. He does not, for instance, know why three neighborhood children might set out to buy ice cream one summer’s day and never be seen again. . . .

In this suburb that is no longer safe and innocent, in a broken family of self-absorbed souls, Sonya Hartnett sets the story of a lone little boy - unwanted, unloved, and intensely curious - a story as achingly beautiful as it is shattering. As her quiet tale ominously unfolds, we are reminded of how fragile are the threads that hold us secure - and how brave, how precious, is the heart of each child who soldiers on.

Publishers Weekly

Hartnett (Thursday's Child) again captures the ineffable fragility of childhood in this keenly observed tale set in 1977 in her native Australia. Adrian has one school friend and many secret fears, including tidal waves, sea monsters, quicksand and being abandoned ("Everybody leaves me. I'm not allowed to be anywhere," he laments). Taken away from his (apparently) mentally ill mother, and unwanted by his father, nine-year-old Adrian lives with his grandmother and traumatized, agoraphobic uncle. The boy becomes transfixed by the story of three siblings in a nearby suburb who went out for ice cream and disappeared; he wonders why ordinary children like himself might have been "worth taking or wanting, a desirable thing." As the title indirectly suggests, the author maintains an omniscient, bird's-eye perspective, taking in not only Adrian's experiences but the feelings of his grandmother and uncle, some information about the new family next door (it includes three children and a desperately ill mother) and news of the missing children. The measured distance Hartnett puts between readers and Adrian allows her to introduce a tragic climax that neither manipulates nor (likely) devastates the audience. Sophisticated readers will appreciate the work's acuity and poetic integrity. Ages 14-up. (Feb.)

Sonya Hartnett is the author of THURSDAY'S CHILD and several other acclaimed novels - the first written when she was just thirteen - and the recipient of many prestigious awards in her native Australia. Of WHAT THE BIRDS SEE, she says, "The Metford children are based on three children who went missing here in Australia in the late sixties and were never found. The abduction of a child is an emotive subject, and I was wary of using someone else’s tragedy for my own purpose, so I deliberately kept the crime in the background of the book. Adrian is me in many respects, and many of the things that happen to him happened to me."