Page 36 - Southern Exposure - March '25

Page 36, Southern Exposure

Book review

The Backyard Book Chronicles

By Nils A. Shapiro

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