Page 10 - Palm City Spotlight - March '25

Page 10, Palm City Spotlight

book review

The Backyard Book Chronicles to focus inward, studying the natural life within her own metal feeders. It crashed into one of the feeders, injured a
backyard, and to keep a personal journal of that experience. wing and Amy Tan, after frantic efforts to free and release
By Nils A. Shapiro She took drawing lessons to brush up on the art skills she her, rushed the hawk to a wildlife center to try to have the
Nils began his career had already demonstrated at a very young age. bird healed.
as marketing director for After an excellent and informative foreword by “She received a total of three months of incredible care.
a major book publisher. renowned ornithologist David Allen Sibley, who explains But she was still not flying symmetrically. A few days after
He has since edited the why birdwatching has become such a popular activity that report, I received a voicemail message from the medical
authors’ manuscripts’ for throughout the U.S., followed by the author’s preface director, asking that I return her call. I knew by her soft,
more than 20 published in which she describes a childhood and personal life consoling tone that the news would not be good. I spared
books, written more than interests that have led to this new book, the first entry in her the difficulty of telling me and left a voicemail message,
200 book reviews, served the Chronicles is dated Sept. 16, 2017; the last is dated saying I appreciated all that they had done. I knew that if
as publisher of several Dec. 15, 2022. (the hawk) could not fly well enough to find food, she would
million-plus circulation That is a period of just over five years in which Amy slowly starve in the wild … I understood why it was more
national magazines, created Tan, and we readers along with her, learn so much and humane to euthanize her, and I was grateful that they would
the official yearbooks for teams in Major League Baseball, feel so much as she not only watches the many species do it in the kindest way possible.
the National Football League, National Basketball of birds that visit her backyard, but often becomes a part “After I left the message, I cried. I tried to draw her
Association and National Hockey League, and “retired” of their lives—feeding them, sometimes holding them, portrait. But I could not capture her spirit. I could not
as president of a successful telecommunications company. protecting them whenever possible from predators, trying capture the way she must have felt within I briefly held
It was a wonderful surprise—and coincidence—when a to outsmart the agile and determined squirrels who want her in my arms and told her I was sorry.”
copy of this book arrived at my home one Monday as a gift their portions of the seeds meant for the birds—and each A month later, on Oct. 24, 2021, a bomb cyclone arrived
from my two daughters, day learning something wonderfully new which she in the Bay Area. As Amy Tan notes—here again I am
Brett and Hillary. Just a shares with us: their individual personalities, her avian quoting just brief excerpts from her wonderful description
day earlier I had noted The friends’ food likes and dislikes, fears or willingness to be of the event:
Backyard Book Chronicles approached, mating habits, parenting skills, dominance “It hurled serial storms and produced an atmospheric
at the top of the Sunday traits, aggression or shyness—and so much more. river that dropped a thirty-minute deluge. We, the denizens
New York Times nonfiction Throughout the period covered in these pages Tan learned who had been saving shower water to wash bird poop
bestseller list, and Barnes to identify 62 different kinds of birds that visited her backyard off the porch were happy to be waterlogged … But as
& Noble bookseller chain’s and lists them at the back of the book in such categories as: I watched the large limbs or our oak trees swaying, I
naming it as their “Book of corvids, doves and pigeons, finches, nuthatches, raptors, imagined the birds in those trees being whipsawed and
the Year.” sparrows (which alone covers 10 species), thrushes, warblers, flung into the storm. Where do they go to stay dry when
Such success is not new woodpeckers and other songbirds. the rain is blasting sideways?
to author Amy Tan, whose Some visit her regularly throughout the year. Others “As if in answer, two pygmy nuthatches flew into the
ten earlier books include obey their ancient instincts and migrate thousands of miles covered porch off my office, shook themselves off, and
the novel, The Joy Luck around the globe as the seasons change, returning the same sat on top of a cage feeder a couple of inches apart.
Club, which became an international bestseller and the time each year to a warm welcome at Tan’s backyard. Most people would agree that the pygmy nuthatch is one
inspiration for the hit motion picture of the same title. We learn about them not only through her Chronicle’s of the cutest birds on earth. They look and sound like
After learning of the book, I had immediately decided fascinating and informative text but also from some of the squeaky toys. I assumed they would eat a few suet balls
to schedule it for review in my column, thanks to my intentionally rough drawings accompanied by handwritten for fortitude and head for a heavily leafed hiding spot.
daughters’ thoughtfulness, a clear indication that they are notes that are equally interesting and which point out But after five minutes, they were still there …
very much tuned in to my reading tastes, this very special unusual facts worth knowing that she has either sketched, “They did not go into the feeders to eat. They simply
book was already in my hands. And now, as I have just or less often photographed then sketched, while observing watched the rain from their spectator seats. The smaller
turned the last page I am in awe of every aspect of this the birds’ actions. nuthatch scooted closer to the bigger one. The bigger one
remarkable work: The range of emotions engendered by these experiences then allopreened the smaller one, poking and picking at
• the very concept of the book—a day by day dated is exemplified by two examples that I will touch on its feathers. I assumed they were adults, a mated pair,
journal of the author’s experiences watching and inter- very briefly here. Most of the text has been omitted for since the season for fledglings was long over. For thirty
acting with the natural lives of the wide variety of bird lack of space and replaced with ellipses (…). Here is minutes the two nuthatches sat close together like lovers
species that visit her home’s backyard in the San Francisco the first, dated Sept. 26, 2021, a situation in which a on a porch swing, watching the rain as I watched them.”
Bay area; young, inexperienced Cooper’s Hawk flying over Tan’s These offer just a bare hint of the information and
• the author’s writing skills that reflect the wide range backyard had spotted three cage feeders and done a fast experiences awaiting you in the almost 300 pages of this
of emotions she (and we) feel through her experiences; the dive intending to pluck a songbird from its perch as an book, so deserving of its recent honors. Experience it for
more than 130 drawings, sketches and color illustrations easy meal, not realizing that the birds were safe inside the yourself.

Tan herself learned to create that include many which
compare favorably to the iconic Audubon paintings, Life moves fast—
• and even the splendid presentation of this initial

edition from the publisher, Knopf, with a hardcover prepare for the unexpected
binding that is slightly flexible and the book’s overall
stunning design. with Accident Insurance.
In 2016, unhappy and uncomfortable with the national
and international news swirling around her and everyone
else—and having always been aware of what she refers to
as her lifelong “obsession” with birds —Amy Tan decided

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