Birdie
Yorkshire 1950s. This story begins in the Fitzwilliam Children’s Home on the outskirts of Leeds and then moves to the Dales village of Berrington Vale, a coal-mining community. Birdie is a young girl with a single mother and a Black American GI father, though she doesn’t know the full details and their implications at the beginning of the story. She has to leave the comfort of the children’s home where she has been happy with a small group of children like herself, looked after by the kindly Mrs Dudley. When Birdie’s mother dies, her great-aunt Mabel sends for her, but is shocked on her arrival, as she does not know that Birdie is a mixed-race child.
Birdie has a clear narrative voice, and her gradual realisation that other people see her as different is portrayed convincingly.
The story describes her difficulties in settling into the tight-knit village community and the local school, and her feelings are described very well. Her own aunt treats her cruelly at first, but is a good-hearted woman, deep-down, and soon repents and reveals her own past tragedy. Not all the village is hostile, however, and Birdie gradually starts to make friends, including her great uncle, Walter, and Julie next door, who is her age. Her first real friend, however, is Mr Duke, the old pit pony who rescues her when she gets lost down the mine. He is the last pit pony living down the mine, which is about to close, and faces a grim fate, but Birdie is determined to rescue him. The descriptions of the countryside and landscape are realistic, and the life and times of the 1950s in a Yorkshire mining village are convincing. Recommended for readers of 9-12.
