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| First book of the year: The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan |
My first book completed and reviewed in a new year -- The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan -- is an illustrated journal of Tan's experiences as a bird watcher/feeder/artist/enthusiast.
Tan, the famous author of several works, among them are The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter, took a bird-watching class in 2016. During the class the instructor, Jack, also shared his ideas how to draw birds. Since they don't sit still for long, one has to really hone their observational skills to be successful. Tan started practicing her illustration skills while looking out the windows of her home in Sausalito, California. Over the course of six years she kept an illustrated journal of the birds she saw in her yard. In it she talked about the techniques she used to lure the birds to her yard, while not attracting mammals like rats and squirrels. As her bird feeding techniques got more sophisticated, so did her illustrations.
In the preface Tan says,
These pages are a record of my obsession with birds. My use of the word obsession is not hyperbole. The Backyard Bird Chronicles contains excerpts from hundred of pages gleaned from nine personal journals filled with sketches and handwritten notes of naive observations of birds in my backyard...My perception of [bird] behaviors changed as I continued to watch day after day, year after year, most of the time sitting at the dining room table overlooking the patio, where I wrote my new novel, or tried to without leaping up whenever I saw a bird doing something I had never seen before, which was often. The Chronicles is also a record of my growth as an artist.
The first journal entry in this book was dated September 16, 2017. It begins --
While watching hummingbird buzz around me, I recalled a fantasy every child has: that I could win the trust of wild animals and they would willingly come to me.
With text on one side and a journal page entry on the other side we are shown the marvelous skills Tan employed to gain the trust of her avian friends and the steps she used to get closer to them. Here is a sample from page 52--
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| Here Tan is imagining what the Lesser Goldfinch and the Purple Finch must be thinking as the feeder is removed to prevent the spread of disease. |
On another page, Tan journals about the Golden-Crowned Sparrow and makes observations --
Though these illustrations are good, one can tell they were done in a hurry. Later in the book she shared more detailed illustrations of Several birds who visited her yard. She clearly spent a lot of time of these works. Some people have told her she rivals Audubon's illustrating skills. I see why --
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| Great Horned Owl |
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| Chestnut-backed Chickadee |
I selected The Backyard Bird Chronicles to be my first read of 2025. It had arrived off hold at the library right before the end of December and I'd long wanted to read it. When I began the book, however, I realized it wasn't a good 'first book' selection since I wanted to take my time and savor it. No one is keeping track (except me) how fast I read and finish a book, but still I felt some disappointment in myself because my first book of the year wasn't done until the end of the first week of the year. Sigh. Anyway, it was worth the time it took to read slowly and savor it.
One note which surprised me. Amy Tan was working on this project before, during, and after the COVID pandemic shut-downs. She barely mentioned this fact. Perhaps because she works at home as a writer, her life didn't change as much as everyone else experienced during that time. Or perhaps she made an editorial decision to talk about herself only in relationship to what was happening with the birds and they weren't impacted by out pandemic. I suspect it was the latter case. Interestingly, she had to remove all her feeders several times in fear of bird flu or other deadly diseases to birds. She let her readers draw their own conclusions about how that could or should relate to human behavior.
My rating: 4.5 stars.
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