Birdland

By: Tracy Mack

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Amid the sparkle and hum of a New York City winter, Jed and his best friend, Flyer, are filming a documentary of their neighborhood. In the process, Jed confronts painful memories of his older brother, Zeke, a poet who loved jazzman Charlie "Bird" Parker and who died, leaving behind his CDs, a notebook, and a lot of unanswered questions.

When Jed encounters a mysterious homeless girl he thinks holds the key to connecting him to Zeke, it could be his only way to unlock his deepest sorrow and discover how to be, who to be, on his own.

As true and lyrical as a sax solo, Birdland touches down at the core of the human heart and sends it soaring. Recommended for young adults.

©2003 Tracy Mack, excerpt from Our House: The Stories of Levittown 2005 Pam Conrad (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"The beauty of this rigorously unsentimental novel about a family in crisis is the way that Mack, even as she lets her characters' imaginations soar, keeps her story grounded in the pain of broken things." (Booklist)