Birdgirl
Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
British-Bangladeshi birder, environmentalist and activist Mya-Rose Craig is an international force. In her moving memoir, Birdgirl, she chronicles her mother’s struggle with mental illness, and shares her passion for social justice and fierce dedication to preserving our planet.
Meet Mya-Rose – otherwise known as “Birdgirl.” In her words: “Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven in that there’s no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact.”
Birdgirl follows Mya-Rose and her family as they travel the world in search of rare birds and astonishing landscapes. But a shadow moves with them, too—her mother's deepening mental health crisis. In the face of this struggle, the Craigs turn to nature again and again for comfort and meaning.
Each bird they see brings a moment of joy and reflection, instilling in Mya-Rose a deep love of the natural world. But Mya-Rose has also seen first-hand the reckless destruction we are inflicting on our fragile planet, as well as the pervasive racism infecting every corner of the world, leading her to campaign for Black, Indigenous, people of color.
Joining the fight of today's young environmental activists, Mya-Rose shares her experiences to advocate for the simple, profound gift of nature, and for making it accessible to all, calling her readers to rediscover the power of our natural world.
Birder, activist, daughter: this is her story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Birdwatching... is a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven that there's no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact" writes Craig in her dynamic debut. Born to a British father and Bangladeshi mother, Craig grew up in a family of fervent birdwatchers (or "twitchers") for whom the activity wasn't a hobby, but a means of survival. She recounts her family using travel to cope with her bipolar mother's intensifying mood swings and troubling thoughts, sharing how they came together to search for birds in exotic destinations and traversed all seven continents before the author turned 15. As well, Craig touches on her 2016 founding of the charity Black2Nature, a platform to help give "visible minority ethnic" people better access to the outdoors ("To have a real shot at saving our world, we must involve every ethnicity as a matter of urgency"), sprinkles in background on endangered species and conservation efforts to save them, and offers something of a bird-watching 101 that covers techniques and explains the field's jargon. This will inspire nature-minded readers.
