It is the summer of 1940 and Nathan (Natt) Silver and his best friend Max Zwecker are playing a game called Life and Death on the High Seas when Max's mother tells Natt he has to go home. Natt lives in Zastavna, with his mother, his father who runs a grain business and their housemaid, Lana. The village has a large Ukrainian population and is only a few hours from Czernowitz, the largest city in Burkovina. Natt speaks many languages including German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Hebrew and Yiddish.
After their guests leave, Natt's father explains that in the past year Hitler signed a pact with Stalin meaning that Russia is now taking over this part of the country. The hated Iron Guard are leaving and Natt will be learning Russian with new teachers.
Natt's family could have been safe from all of this, had they followed through on their plan to leave five years ago. At that time his parents were going to move to Montreal, Canada where relatives lived, but at the last minute his mother changed her mind.
Several days later, Natt's parents tell him they are burying a box of gold coins in their backyard. This seems very strange to Natt. The Russians arrive, singing songs and telling the people that their friend, Stalin will look after them.
Changes happen at school as well. Gone is Mrs. Bubu, the teacher everyone doesn't like. Instead their new teacher is Comrade Minsky, who used to be a professor at a famous Moscow university. There is also Comrade Martha who hands out candy canes and introduces the class to Comrade Stalin on the poster on the wall. She tells Natt, Max and the other students their goal is to become Pioneers.
Natt's life begins to unravel quickly after the arrival of the Russians. They lose their home, which is taken over by the Russians to be used as a bank, and have to move into the apartment attached to their home. The men who helped Natt's father in his grain business leave. Hebrew school is no longer allowed, and churches are being closed down.
Then Natt wakes up unexpectedly at his Aunt Dora's home one night. At his insistence, he is taken home where he learns that his father has been arrested. In a strange event, Natt and another student at school, receive a prize for showing outstanding revolutionary spirit. The prize is a baby book for three year olds written by famous author Daniil Kharms, a revelation that causes Comrade Minsky to weep.
Meanwhile Natt's father continues to be held in jail, despite his mother's numerous packages of food in an attempt to bribe the NKVD, the Russian secret police. As the weeks go by, Natt is shunted from one relative to the next, eventually ending up at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro. Before Natt's twelfth birthday, he and his mother are allowed to walk by the prison to see his father at the window. But Natt, conflicted over the communist indoctrination he's receiving at school and his father in prison, refuses to look at him. This causes him much regret afterwards.
On his twelfth birthday, Natt learns that his father has been sentenced to five years in jail. But he later learns the truth from his friend Lucy who tells him that his father is being sent to work in the gold mines in Magadan, Siberia, more than eleven thousand kilometers from home. He will be in a new kind of prison called a gulag run by the NKVD.
Devastated, Natt seeks out his friend Matt who tells him to open his eyes to what is going on around him and to trust only a very few people including his parents. Then his mother goes into hiding, something Natt only learns about when he is arrested. In the filthy prison, without food or water, Natt is questioned and terrorized by the police until his mother shows up. At this point things get much worse. He learns that they will have to pack and leave for Siberia. When he and his mother arrive at the train station they are stunned to see that hundreds of others are also there. They are being deported to Siberia. It is the beginning of a terrible journey which will require Natt to be the courageous hero that his father has encouraged him to be.
Discussion
A Boy Is Not a Bird is a book based on the life experiences of Nahum Halpern, who taught the author during her childhood. Nahum was exiled to Siberia along with his family in 1940. Although based on the events in Nahum's life, the characters and conversations are entirely fictional creations of the author. The story is told from the point of view of Natt Silver, a young boy who is beginning to grow up but whose parents, in particular his mother, attempt to protect him from the harsh realities of war.
Natt's mother spends much of her time pretending that everything is normal, as things go from bad to worse. Natt knows from the beginning that his mother is not telling him the truth. When she tells him about the Hebrew school and the churches closing, she forces herself to laugh. But Natt finds this unsettling. "It's a bit spooky. That type of fake laugh, especially when it's your mother who's putting on an act."
Natt's mother tells him his telescope is in safe keeping, yet he overhears her telling Aunt Dora and Uncle Isaac it has been sold. Natt believes that after the war, he will get everything back. When Natt's father is sentenced to five years in jail, his mother doesn't tell him what has really happened, only that he's likely safer in prison than in the army. But from his friend Lucy, he learns that his father has been sentenced to hard labour in the gulag.
Natt begins to realize that his mother's actions are a façade. When his father is sentenced to the gulag, Natt's mother remarks that he will likely be safer in prison than in the army. When they drive by their house on the way to the train station to be deported, she tells Natt they are lucky to have the chance to say goodbye to their home. As they are being deported, his mother's words are in stark contrast to what Natt feels and he realizes, "Mama is not only putting on an act for the people in charge. She's also putting on an act for me. She doesn't want me to be scared, so she's pretending that everything is fine and dandy...So she's pretending and I'm pretending. Neither of us can say what we really feel about the old house....Neither of us can say or show what we feel about Papa being sent to Siberia and the two of us following him -- and not even to the same place, as far as we know."
Natt's parents while protecting him, try to prepare him for the horrors of war in a more general way. His parents have different advice for him. The novel takes its title from a story that Natt is told by his mother about how war has a transient effect. "When two countries are fighting...there can be a lot of confusion. You can't predict from one day to the next what will happen." She tells him that "...war is like a dog barking at a flock of birds who are sitting quietly on a haystack. The birds fly away, but then when the war ends, they come back to where they were." In other words, the effects of war are transient, and some day things return to the way they once were.
His father however, advises Natt to have courage and be a hero. "War is when you get a chance to be a hero. Because every day that you get through it, you've done something heroic." When Natt asks what this means his father responds, "Get through whatever comes your way...And you Natt...are definitely hero material. No matter what, you will always be courageous, keeping in mind that the birds as Mama says, will find their way back after the war." However, a boy is not a bird, and it's not always possible to be courageous and to find one's way.
While this sounds romantic, by the time Natt is almost in Siberia, he knows differently. "I think a lot these days about what Papa said. In wartime, just getting through the day makes you a hero. But I don't feel like a hero. I think it's the opposite really. War makes you feel smaller and smaller. You keep shrinking, like Alice in Wonderland, until you're so small you're practically invisible. A person that tiny can't be a hero." But what Natt has experienced, how he has already endured many weeks of suffering and deprivation, demonstrate that he is very much a hero.
Ravel captures the horror of the deportation by train into Siberia that millions experienced. The story is set in Zastavna but doesn't identify exactly where this is. Zastavna was part of Romania in 1940 but is now part of Ukraine. There is also mention of the Iron Guard and how Natt and everyone in Zastavna feared them. The Iron Guard was a fascist movement that sided with Germany. In 1940, Romania lost much of its territory to the Soviets, including the area around Burkovina, where Natt's village is located.
A Boy Is Not A Bird is the first book in a planned trilogy. Ravel includes an Author's Note which explains his inspiration for the novel, as well as a map and a Historical Note.
Book Details:
A Boy Is Not A Bird by Edeet Ravel
Toronto: Groundwood Books 2019
229 pp.
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