Leaving Birdsong

An inquisitive bookworm explores a whole new world when her family moves north during the Great Migration in Coretta Scott King Honor winner Brenda Woods’s stand-alone companion to The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA.

It’s 1946 when eleven-year-old Abigail and her parents move from Birdsong, South Carolina, to Detroit, where her parents say there are more opportunities for people of color. This promise is fulfilled when her father gets a good job at an auto factory, and on her visits to the city’s impressive library, where she not only gets to walk through the front door for the first time but also meets her first Black librarian. And though her parents encourage her to focus on the new possibilities, it doesn’t take long for Abigail to see that some of the limitations imposed by segregation also exist in the North.

Abigail keenly observes it all, as she’s determined to become a writer, even though not everyone takes her seriously. The Motor City offers plenty of inspiration, and she writes poems about Caesar, her funny neighbor, and the goings-on at the fancy hotel for wealthy Black folks where her mom gets a job. But before long, Abigail becomes more than an observer when a tragedy occurs after a homeless boy robs her. When she and her friends set out to help the boy’s younger brother, she is confronted with uncomfortable realities about poverty. Throughout her summer of adventures and unexpected happenings, Abigail keeps her light shining as she reluctantly sheds her country-girl beginnings and starts to embrace Detroit as home.