Scholastic (Hardcover), ISBN 0-439-53590-5

Tracy Mack sets both poetry in motion and a musical score to the inspiring life of one teenage boy in her second novel, Birdland. This tender novel about loss and healing soars on the wings of a talented new author, who finds magic in the everyday world.

Against the stark backdrop of a New York City winter, 14-year-old Joseph (Jed) and his best friend, Flyer, team up on a school project to create a documentary about their lives and the people in them. Surprisingly, the eyes of the camera not only capture snapshots of the East Village neighborhood, but objects and people Jed's brother Zeke wrote poems about, as well as Jed's personal search for understanding of Zeke's untimely death.

Jed uses Zeke's belongings to seek clues to the answers to unresolved questions. He discovers the music of Jazzman Charlie "Bird" Parker in Zeke's CD collection, images of beauty and despair in his poetry journal, and on the street, a homeless girl who seems to have sprung from the pages of one of Zeke's poems. While searching for physical connections to Zeke's former world, Jed makes the girl's acquaintance and realizes the seriousness of her plight. Zeke attempts to help her. But when his efforts prove futile, he must break through the hard, unemotional shell of his grief-stricken father to give the girl the type of help she really needs.

Following in the footsteps of acclaim for Mack's first novel, a middle grade story entitled Drawing Lessons, Birdland landed a spot in the Fall 2003 Book Sense 76 Top Ten List in the children's category. An editor for Scholastic herself, Tracy Mack sure knows her stuff!

Lynne Marie Pisano

Lynne Marie Pisano is a freelance writer, poet, book reviewer, SCBWI Metro New York LI Critique Group Coordinator and Co-Chair of the Long Island Children's Writers and Illustrators. She lives in New York with her husband Michael, her son Kevin and a daughter named Kayla, and Dante, a Schipperke.

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