Review: The Ever-After Bird by Ann Rinaldi

Aunt Susan Elizabeth used to say there was something in all of us that delighted in bullying those lower in the social order of things.  And that was what made slavery so easy for the white folks to practice.

My father said fear is what made it easy to practice.  That down in the Deep South there were places where the blacks outnumbered the whites.  And the whites had to keep them under control.

Both reasons frightened me.  Because whatever my reason was, I was good at it.

(from The Ever-After Bird, page 61)

Yesterday I said Come Juneteenth was my favorite of Ann Rinaldi’s middle grade and young adult historical novels; then I read The Ever-After Bird, which is just as good, if not better.  I read The Ever-After Bird in just a couple of hours, and it blew me away.  Rinaldi based this book on Dr. Alexander Ross, a Canadian physician and renowned ornithologist who sketched birds on the Southern plantations and also was involved in the Underground Railroad.  Because little is known about Ross, much of The Ever-After Bird is fiction, but her version of the doctor is both charming and captivating.

The Ever-After Bird is set in 1851, more than 10 years before the start of the American Civil War, but Rinaldi does a wonderful job showing the horrors of slavery, the persistence of the Abolitionists, and how they both paved the way for war.  CeCe is a 13-year-old girl living in Pennsylvania on the Maryland border wondering why her father felt the need to help raggedy slaves on their way to freedom when he couldn’t treat his own daughter with kindness.  After he is killed by angry plantation owners looking for their runaway slaves, CeCe is left in the care of her Uncle Alex, a doctor and an ornithologist with a kind smile but pain in his eyes.

He proposes to take CeCe with him and his assistant, a former slave turned college student named Earline, on a trip to visit various plantations in Georgia on a search for the scarlet ibis, called the Ever-After Bird by slaves who believed that if they saw it, they would be free ever-after.  CeCe and Earline are unable to see beyond their past hurts to understand one another, and therefore, they are constantly mean to each other.

While on the plantations, Uncle Alex plans to talk to the slaves, give them directions to safe houses on the Underground Railroad, and provide them with a little money.  However, he needs to keep up appearances so that they don’t get caught, and Earline must play the role of slave, not assistant.  CeCe finds that it is easy to treat Earline badly, but then she witnesses some things on the plantations that cause her to rethink everything she’s believed in and realize that her previous stance that people should just be allowed to live how they want to live without interference may not be the best way after all.

The Ever-After Bird is the first Rinaldi novel that I’ve read so far that doesn’t gloss over the issue of slavery.  Many of the characters I’ve encountered so far in her novels are Southern, daughters of slave owners who insist that their families treat their slaves kindly and that their slaves are content in their place in society.  I understand that’s the character’s point of view based on her situation in life, but it felt to me that the reality was barely visible.  However, I excused it because slavery wasn’t the main theme in those novels.

Here, Rinaldi doesn’t sugar-coat slavery.  Female slaves are attacked by their masters and their masters’ sons, but because the book is intended for younger readers, there are no graphic scenes, just mentions of such treatment.  Slaves are used in scientific experiments, they live in crowded conditions where illness is rampant, and they are whipped.  These scenes are necessary for CeCe’s evolution from a young girl broken by guilt and abuse and blind to the mistreatment of others to a young woman who learns about love, kindness, and friendship from Uncle Alex and Earline.  Rinaldi makes it easy for readers to feel CeCe’s pain and understand why she acted the way she did.  I loved Uncle Alex; he understood CeCe because he’d been raised by her father, his older brother.  He knew what CeCe needed, to be loved and feel loved, and he took on the role of “daddy-uncle” with a tenderness that melted my heart.

The Ever-After Bird had me on the edge of my seat.  The tension built as the trio went from one plantation to another, and the cruelty they witnessed intensified.  Rinaldi brilliantly balances the harsh images with more tender ones.  It is a powerful and emotional novel, but it is also sweet and heartwarming.  Definitely not one to be missed.

Disclosure: I borrowed The Ever-After Bird from my local library. I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.

© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.