Book Review of The Ever-After Bird by Ann Rinaldi

PRODUCT DETAILS:

Author:  Ann Rinaldi
Intended Audience:  Juvenile
Copyright:  2009
Publisher:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Published:  2007
Summary:  In 1851, 13 year old Cecilia McGill learns about the horrors of slavery when she accompanies her ornithologist uncle on an expedition to the South to find the rare scarlet ibis, known by the slaves as the Ever-After bird.

ISBN-13:  978-0-547-25854-6
UPC:  9780547258546 (50799)
Price:  $7.99 in the United States, though it can be found cheaper.  I got mine for $3.00 at Booksamillion.
Websites:  www.hmhbooks.com;  www.annrinaldi.net
Genre classifications:  Historical fiction, American history, Black History
Still in Print:  Yes
My Personal Rating:  5/5
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I fully admit that I judge a book by its cover...or at least whether I want to read a book.  Though I know that an interesting cover doesn't necessarily mean the book is interesting or any good, the fact is that an interesting cover can catch your eye when faced with rows upon rows of books.  This was how I chose this book.  The girl on the cover was staring at me.

I don't mind, even though I'm an adult, reading books that are classified as juvenile.  Frankly, maybe I'm old fashion, but I'm sometimes surprised by the books that wind up in juvenile fiction.  Though in my day they were trying to expose us to some harsh realities, they had a tendency to really sugar coat it.  We learned about the Holocaust by reading an edited version of The Diary of Anne Frank.  For Black History Month, we read a story about when Martin Luther King was a little boy, and he was told he could no longer play with his little white friend.  We read about Harriet Tubman leading people successfully to freedom, or about how many uses George Washington Carver found for peanuts.  The stories always toed the line but never got into the atrocities.

This book won't leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling, but neither is it horribly violent either.  It is well written and has a strong plot.  The characters are interesting.  It is sophisticated enough to interest an adult, but it is a good book for young readers as well.

I provided a summary in the product details, but I'll add a few more tidbits I didn't mention.  What I liked about this book was that it was told by a young white girl who was not, at the beginning, particularly sympathetic to the plight of the slaves.  Usually most books about slavery either deal with characters who are black, slaves, or sympathetic abolitionists.  Though I'm not in any way arguing that slavery wasn't bad, the problem is that you only get to see the psychology behind those who are victimized by it.  My interest, whenever I'm dealing with any type of human cruelty, is on the psychology of the abusers.  This book, I feel, highlights a point of view that we don't get to see very often. 

Cece starts out resentful that her father is an abolitionist.  Her father is hardly loving, blaming his daughter for his wife dying in childbirth.  This resentment seems to worsen when he gets involved in being a station master for the Underground Railroad.  He takes in runaway slaves.  Cece resents that she is constantly being forced to work on quilts, which communicated codes to runaway slaves.

This explains what the different symbols on the quilts meant.

Example of a quilt used to communicate information to runaway slaves

Cece understands that being an abolitionist is dangerous, but she doesn't understand the horrors of slavery.  Her father claims she has "no soul", but the fact is she hasn't been exposed to the horrors.  Her father and aunt never go into details about what the slaves have to deal with.  She never talks to the runaways her father takes in.  She doesn't witness slavery firsthand.  She has been influenced by the attitude of the status quo rather than by her father's beliefs.

Though she didn't like her father, when he is killed for his abolitionist activities, she is hardly motivated to become involved with the cause.  She wants nothing to do with it, and therefore she is upset when her new guardian--her Uncle Alex--is also an abolitionist.

Ann Rinaldi based the character of Uncle Alex on a real life ornithologist who was also an agent for the Underground Railroad, Alexander Milton Ross...known as "The Birdman" among the slaves.

Author, abolitionist, and ornithologist Alexander Milton Ross

 
Uncle Alex, though, is a much kinder father-figure--and Cece suddenly gets the love she never got from her father.  He is better at discussing the difficult subjects with her (except about boys) and is patient about her reluctance to accept that he is doing the right thing when it comes to his abolitionist activities.

This causes some jealousy between Cece and Uncle Alex's assistant Earline, an escaped slave.  Cece thinks Earline is rather proud and uppity.  Earline, who probably views Uncle Alex as her savior and has enjoyed his sole attention, resents this niece taking some of that attention away from her.  As we learn Earline's story--she had been the slave and playmate to a girl who used to get her whipped when she became jealous of her father paying attention to Earline--it seems that Earline is also transferring her old resentments onto another white face.  Though Earline is proud, stubborn, and a tad foolish...she is both a sympathetic and admirable character.

Cece accompanies her uncle and Earline on an expedition to the South.  Her uncle wants to sketch birds for his book, and Georgia is apparently rich in its variety of bird species.  He is particularly seeking the rare scarlet ibis, known to the slaves as the Ever-After Bird.  The slaves believe that if they see this bird, it means they will soon be free.

The Ever-After Bird, the scarlet ibis

There are some things that Cece has a problem reconciling with her uncle.  One is his interest in ornithology.  She doesn't like that he kills these beautiful birds so he can sketch them.  It seems a peculiar thing for him to do when he is such an advocate for human rights.  Though his ornithological interests are partly the reason why he is going to Georgia, he is also there to advise slaves on how to escape and to provide some aide for them to do so.  Since he has free access to the plantation, given to him by his unsuspecting hosts, he can do this without arousing suspicion.

Earline pretends to be their slave, but aside from assisting Uncle Alex, she is also gathering information for her term paper that she is doing as a student of Oberlin College.  Cece is confused about why Earline needs to witness slavery, having been a slave herself.  However, Earline had been a house slave--whose conditions had been better than most--and she had been a slave as a child.  She now wishes to see the lives of slaves who work in the fields, and what it is like to be an adult slave.  Aside from her pride being constantly wounded as she returns to a world where she is considered an object, something inferior--she is also forced to face her demons.  Oddly enough, it seems that it is Cece who understands the dangers more than Earline as the novel progresses.  It makes you wonder...does living in a dangerous situation cause people to turn off their awareness to danger to be able to live with it on a daily basis, or is it simply that victims don't generally understand the thought process of their abusers?

Cece gradually comes to understand why abolitionists are risking their lives to help the slaves as she visits the Georgian plantations.  On the surface, these plantations are beautiful.  The host and hostess are usually charming and very accommodating.  The food is abundant and delicious.  However, there is always something nasty going on--human experimentation, appalling living conditions, beatings, etc. that Cece witnesses firsthand.  Something I learned about in this book, which I had never heard about, was that sometimes masters would put iron head gear on a slave that constantly ran away.  It would weigh roughly fifteen pounds and make a lot of noise.

This book enforced the opinion for me that abolishing slavery was not only good for the blacks but for the whites--though I know many whites would have disagreed at the time.  I remember reading a comment made by a former slave, who claimed he thought slavery had been bad for the white people because it damaged their souls and turned them into horrible people.

What price do we pay for cheap labor?  This is something that is relevant even now.  Though slavery has been abolished, though we have laws against it, the fact is human trafficking is alive and well...even in the United States.  Smugglers often help people cross the border, but they often take them captive when they reach their destination.

The fact is, the people who keep slaves have to live in fear.  This is no doubt why they commit such monstrous atrocities.  They are usually outnumbered.  They have to worry about uprisings.  In the book, they mentioned that it wasn't uncommon--when a man died--for slaves to rebel and become dangerous to the wife left behind.  If she had no male relatives to protect her or who could control the situation, she could find herself in real trouble.  The abuses the ownders committed were a way to keep control.

As a victim of child abuse, I have come to appreciate the long term damage that occurs...and how difficult it is to undo.  The abuses and just the mentality of slavery caused significant damage.  When we fail to treat people with dignity, as fellow human beings, we create social problems that will plague all of us--regardless of whether we are the masters, the slaves, or the bystanders.

Whether you believe in a higher power or not doesn't matter.  It is practical to follow the adage "Treat others as you wish to be treated".  There may be no Hell waiting for us when we die, but we can certain create a living hell quite easily.

Anyway, I certainly recommend this book.  It is an excellent book to read for Black History Month and for anyone who loves historical fiction.