Name: The Winter of the Birds
ISBN: 9780027255102

Helen Cresswell

A young English boy with ambitions to be a hero learns about true heroism, affection, and the power of imagination when his neighborhood is threatened by multiplying flocks of steel birds.

The Winter of the Birds

Sarah Sammis

The Winter of the Birds is a weird blend of the diary as novel and science fiction. Imagine a young male protagonist like Christopher John Francis Boone of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or Jason Taylor of Black Swan Green in the middle of a Doctor Who type of story.

Edward Flack decides to become a hero. At the same time, Mr. Rudge has a vision of birds that run on wires and are coming to terrorize the the village of St. Savior's. The two team up to protect the village from the threat of these birds and become friends in the process.

There is also the story of Alfred Graves who is saved during a suicide attempt by Patrick Finn, the reluctant taxi driver. Finn and Graves's unlikely friendship comes head to head with Flack and Rudge's quest to save the world from wire birds.

The Winter of the Birds has moments of delightful humor, gothic horror, and outright surrealism. It took me a couple of chapters to get used odd narrative but once I did I enjoyed it thoroughly.