Sugar Birds, by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

Sugar Birds was an atypical reading choice for me on several counts, but its convergence of birds, faith, and neurodiversity piqued my interest. Though I don’t read many fiction titles from Christian publishers, I keep an eye on them, and few, it seems, are written by naturalists or feature neurodivergent characters.

An added attraction for me was the Pacific Northwest setting. Astute descriptions of the natural world merit one endorser’s invocation of Annie Dillard. Bostrom, a poet, delivers Craftsman-style prose–clean, flowing lines, artful but free of excessive ornamentation.

I also appreciated the book’s intergenerational nature. While Sugar Birds reads like–and I believe is intended to be–an adult novel, the point of view characters are nine- and seventeen-year-old girls. As the mother of a seventeen-year-old daughter, the teen protagonist’s struggles are close to home, even if they differ in the main from those of my daughter (or me, at that age). They strike me as realistic and not uncommon, judging by the stories my daughter brings home from high school.

More interesting to me were the challenges of the neurodiverse family. Even if more pronounced than those we have encountered, they ring true. When teen Burnaby explains to protagonist Celia how his alt-wired brain operates, one might suspect a degree of authorial pontification. But given Burnaby’s analytical nature and the degree of recent attention devoted to understanding neurodivergence, Burnaby’s self- awareness and ability to explain himself are entirely credible. Celia comments, “The guy understood his interior state far better than I did mine” (p. 175). I’ve often thought the same of my daughter, as compared to myself at seventeen.

My favorite character, naturally, is Celia’s Gram, also known as “Mender” for her reputation as a tender of injured birds. I particularly respect and admire her skill–something akin to a gardener’s green thumb–given my three-month stint nursing a hen indoors this past winter, which encompassed eight days without electricity in the wake of an ice storm. (Ultimately, my bird succumbed to an aggressive growth on her foot that perplexed even the veterinarians.)

For plot summary and to order on Bookshop, click here: Sugar Birds.

For the author’s bio, poems, nature writing, and more click here: Cheryl Bostrom website. (Be warned that the “Books” page contains Sugar Bird spoilers, couched in the promotional blurb for the sequel, Leaning on Air, released in May.) For inspiration, writing advice, and personal narratives, visit Bostrom’s Substack column, “Birds in the Hand.”