In Search of the Painted Bunting was written by Beverly Varnado and published by Elk Lake Publishing, Inc. (2023). Told in the first-person, it is a novel with a lot of heart. Upper elementary and middle school girls will like Cornelia and enjoy going along with her as she seeks the painted bunting, a beautiful bird.
The majority of the novel occurs during the fall of 1967 and into the late winter of 1968. Eighth-grader Cornelia lives in eastern Georgia. This is an emotional time for her family. The Vietnam War is heating up and Cornelia's drafted brother is in bootcamp. Her parents fear that when Peter finishes camp he will be deployed to Vietnam. In the evenings, Cornelia's father buries himself in the newspaper and Cornelia says she has heard her mother crying at night.
Cornelia is feeling adrift. She misses her brother, but she won't share this with her parents for fear of upsetting them. She also misses her mother who is becoming sadder and more distant. The only one she can even mention Peter to is Opal Ann. Then she learns that Opal Ann, her best friend, really her only friend, will be moving.
As the novel begins, Cornelia and Opal Ann find a portfolio of bird pictures, prints, in a curbside trash pile. Opal Ann gives the portfolio to Cornelia who becomes intrigued with the picture of the beautiful painted bunting. She thinks if she and her mother actually saw the colorful bird, it would bring both of them such joy.
Miss Sosebee, Cornelia's science teacher, tells Cornelia that painted buntings can be found in the coastal areas of Georgia. Cornelia, who has never entered a science fair before, decides to do a science project on the bird's blue feathers in hopes that she and her mother may eventually be invited to the state science symposium in the coastal city of Savannah.
Cornelia, the budding scientist, encounters numerous challenges. She has to learn more about the bird. She has to create a display that explains about the bird. She has to perform an experiment to find out what happens when blue feathers are backlit.
Cornelia figures out ways to overcome all but one of these challenges--the one that is essential to her project. She needs a peacock feather to perform her experiment. Though she asks everyone she knows if they have one, including her classmates, some of whom ridicule her request, she cannot acquire a peacock feather. Then one day a feather mysteriously appears on her desk in science class.
Spoiler Alert: Cornelia's project is a success, and it is accepted for the science faire in Savannah. She and her mother go to Savannah along with some of Cornelia's classmates and their parents. Cornelia discovers that she does enjoy studying science and she may be good at it. She and her mother do get to see the painted bunting though not in the place where they had been looking for it. In this unexpected turn of events Cornelia and her mother gain more than the pleasure of seeing the beautiful bird, they make new friends, and their lives go in a richer, more meaningful direction. She makes another discovery, the source of the feather. Cornelia learns that the feather came from Angela, the new girl in her class, and an African American.
At one early point in the story Cornelia observes, "Many times people don't see the beauty in something—or someone." Cornelia's eyes open in the course of the novel. She begins to see that she has been making some hasty and poor judgements about people, including herself.
I think this is a sweet, uplifting book that girls will enjoy. Parents and grandparents may want to know that the character's voice seems true to that of an eighth grader. You may also want to know that while this story touches on several emotionally charged and complex topics: divorce, the war in Vietnam, school integration, it handles the topics gently and as they effect the young girl, Cornelia. As someone who reads a lot of books for kids, I applaud the author's discretion and I think, wisdom in this choice. As a former teacher, I recognize that handling these topics in this way could whet a reader's appetite for further research.
Nancy Ellen Hird is a mom, a writer and a credentialed teacher. (She taught seventh grade and preschool.) You can learn more about her and her mystery novels for pre-teens, I Get a Clue and We All Get a Clue, at www.nancyellenhird.com . For several years Nancy Ellen Hird was a freelance reviewer of children's and teen's literature for the Focus on the Family website.
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