Like a Bird

Gr 9 Up–Rachel Bird, 16, loves to read and dreams of a semester abroad in Paris, but her independence is on hold. Boyfriend Cody thinks she spoils her nine-year-old sister Jane, but Rachel doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t look out for her. Since moving in last year with their loving but aging grandparents on land owned by the family for 200 years outside Vancouver, British Columbia, she feels responsible for them, too. Even Cody’s stressing her out. She might be pregnant, and who said anything about marriage? It’s a question that comes to mind when he presents her with an emerald birthstone ring. Rachel oversteps, doubts herself, then feels bad in typical, circular teenage fashion. Jane tries to keep up with—and stand up to—her older sister, whom she reveres and occasionally despises. Grandfather Wayne is stubborn about taking his meds and about their land: when wildfires force them to evacuate, he won’t go. Inspired by five days in July 2021 when temperatures rose to 121 degrees and hundreds of people died, the crisis threatens to tear the family apart. Rachel’s perspective is tempered by a close friendship with Cassie, a First Nations girl who lives on a nearby reserve, land owned by her people for thousands of years. Citra’s love for her native Canadian northwest becomes the catalyst in this drama built around a true event, a recent heat dome, and its aftermath of wildfires.