Nightbird by Alice Hoffman
….instead of reading this book.
Let me preface this two different ways:
I should probably also preface with: I’m a jaded reader. This is just to say (William Carlos Williams) that I don’t like the predictable, the old worn fable that’s not told in a new way, the “everything falls into place” (ex: The Kite Runner), and I definitely don’t like kitschy magic (See: The Ocean at the End of the Lane).
Nightbird by Alice Hoffman
I’ve gushed over Alice Hoffman before. Normally, her magic is just that, pure magic. The kind you can hold in your palm and it mutters into the air and before you know it, you’ve followed the unlit candle into the dark and someone is a witch, and another woman has unearthed her dead husband, or called to her side a forgotten mother. She’s more of a quilt maker than an author. This, Nightbird, was not that.
Twig in my yard (TWIG)
Nightbird is the story of Twig (fabulous character names) who has a strange and lonely family and is not allowed to hang out with other people in town because her mother has a secret hidden in the attic. Throughout the first few chapters, the reader learns the family secret as it relates to the witch’s cottage at the edge of the orchard. Coincidentally, the family that is a descendent of the beginning witch moves into the cottage and the whole secret becomes anew (with pie, young best friends, and an herb garden). Twig runs into a lot of members of Sidwell (the small town on the fringe of a great wood). Authors seem to believe these people actually live in small towns (librarians, town historians, men who study owls of the woods, sisters of the witch, community theater directors that direct plays involving a small town history). I’ll have you know though, since I live in a small town with a Main St. and a Church St. (and all the churches are on Church Street), our town librarian does not know the history of every child born in the town. While this is quaint, this isn’t (Wyoming). Is Wyoming like that? I’ve probably read too many novels.
Alice Hoffman @ Wikispaces (Creative Commons)
Anyway, Twig is the loner that becomes the example. This is the moral of the fable. (Well, she doesn’t become the example, but her family does, as they change the tune of a town that believes in tragedy and stereotyping). I will say that this book was tenderly written. I could tell that Alice Hoffman wanted to reach a nine-year-old girl that searched the landscape of paned windows for enchantment. I think between eighth grade and thirty years, a girl would struggle not to feel like this was a corny version of an adult Alice Hoffman novel. (Corny was the best word I had there).
What is especially corny is the town’s simple acceptance of the hidden fantasy secret. I really don’t want to ruin this for anyone, but in small town, American, cultural history even when people have seen “the other” do something wonderful, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to change their preconceived ideas about this “other,” ESPECIALLY when they haven’t known this “other” their whole life. Small towns are notorious for gossip, judgment, and stereotypes, especially when very few people have left the town for most of their life (making the town the majority of their world view). I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone from a small town, I do adore my small town of cotton fields and broken-hearted barns, but I can say with all honesty that I’ve never seen more of the listed. The people of Sidwell just accept this mystery straight-off. And even when the mystery changes towards the end, there is no response to the newness from the townspeople.
Beauty and the Beast (Creative Commons) @ Arts Journal
If you need a good monster hunt (like the town claims they will have one night due to some deviant’s unfortunate graffiti art), just watch Beauty and the Beast. It will take you just as long as it would to read this novel, and at least you’ll get a musical. The townspeople in Nightbird will be toting knives and bats, but with Beauty and the Beast you have clubs and pitchforks, so that’s just … much more exciting.
My biggest problems will come in the form of a list so I can try not to give things away:
Small Town America (Photo by Pierre Metivier via Creative Commons)
The morning men (aka the older men who sit around the diner table discussing town news) have a chorus of opinions that are never heard but from Twig’s mouth.
As per usual, I’m one of the only people on Goodreads that feels this way. I’m a Grinch.
Abby and I: Post-Turnover
If you’re like me, and you’re jaded, the best part of this story is the descriptions of the pie. Mmmm, I can almost taste the pink apple. Reminds me of the hilled orchards where Abby and I enjoyed baked apple turnovers from a barn warehouse in Tennessee. I would eat my own hand to get at one of those turnovers. In fact, I’d rather use this book as a recipe collection than I would an actual novel.
Really, just “Control F” and find the secret ingredient of the pie and make a few rather than spending that two hours to read this book.