Twelve-year-old Charlie, the bird-loving narrator of Sally J. Pla's warmhearted debut novel, The Someday Birds, has to decide: Is he a flocker, like a Carolina parakeet, or a loner, like a red-tailed hawk? At first, all signs point to loner. His anxious need for cleanliness ("one-soap-rinse-two-soap-rinse-three-soap-rinse....") prevents him from connecting with other people. Shutting himself away from sensory overload in his familiar, comfortable room helps him feel calm; so does drawing and reading about birds. To interpret his family's confusing emotions, he has to memorize "visual cues" like open mouths and furrowed brows. But his war-journalist father is rehabilitating from a bombing, and when his family sets out on a road trip from California to Virginia to visit him, Charlie has no choice but to follow the flock. On the trip, he looks for his "someday birds," species on a list he once compiled with his father, ranging from realistic (bald eagle) to impossible (passenger pigeon). Through his cross-country study of bird behavior, he learns that it's okay to be a both a flocker and a loner.
Pla--who has an autistic son--gives us a memorable hero in this lyrical and funny book. Part poet and part scientist, Charlie thinks deeply about everything he encounters, making connections between experiences and ideas that a more neurotypical kid might miss. He's the perfect tour guide, alert to the wonder of a starry sky, the strangeness of a waterslide and the bewildering mysteries of the people he loves. --Ann Shaffer, freelance writer and editor