The Falcon & the Song Bird - Susan Kay Harris - A Short Summary and Review
The Falcon & the Song Bird - Susan Kay Harris - A Short Summary and Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A Short Summary:
The Falcon & The Song Bird by Susan Kay Harris follows April as she grows from childhood into adolescence during the early 1960s. Her family moves frequently, carrying her from Europe to the Texas Hill Country, where she gradually builds a life among horses, friendships, school, family tensions, and the landscape she comes to love.
As April grows older, the world around her becomes increasingly complicated. Friendships expose her to the realities of racism and segregation, romantic relationships force her to establish her own boundaries, and the turbulent events of the early 1960s begin intruding into everyday life. The Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Civil Rights Movement become part of a young girl's growing understanding of the country around her.
At the same time, April is beginning to see her own family differently. Parents who once seemed simply good or bad become complicated people with histories, disappointments, weaknesses, and wounds of their own. Growing up becomes as much about understanding them as it is about discovering herself.
My Favorite Quote From the Book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My Review:
The Falcon & The Song Bird is a poignant tale of growing up in the early 1960s, capturing both the enormous historical events of the period and the much smaller dramas of adolescence. Susan Kay Harris allows the two to exist alongside one another: school dances and first dates occur in the same world as racial violence, political upheaval, and a country undergoing profound change.
April is particularly interesting because her understanding of the adults around her changes as she matures. Her parents are flawed, sometimes painfully so, but she increasingly recognizes the lives and disappointments that existed before she was old enough to understand them. That gradual loss of childhood certainty gives the novel much of its emotional weight.
The Texas Hill Country also becomes an important part of April's story. Horses, birds, rivers, valleys, and familiar places give her something steady when the people around her are considerably less predictable. Her attachment to the land becomes intertwined with her growing sense of identity and with the difficult realization that places, relationships, and childhood itself cannot always be preserved.
Ultimately, The Falcon & The Song Bird is a thoughtful coming-of-age novel about the moment childhood begins to give way to a more complicated understanding of the world. It is a story of friendship, family, prejudice, first love, loss, and the difficult knowledge that growing up often means learning to see both the beauty and the failures in the people and places we love.
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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