posted on 11 Jun 2023

Nightjar by Katya Balen

Noah is a young boy who loves birds and, along with his best friend, Annie they save and nurture any they find injured, keeping them safe until they can be released. But Noah has a deep sadness at the centre of his world because his dad has left the family home to start a new life and a new relationship in America and the boy and his father are struggling to find a way of relating to each other.

Noah is angry – angry that his dad has left and angry that his dad seems to know so little about him and what he loves to do. It’s not just the inappropriate gifts he sends but his seeming inability to grasp the depth of Noah’s love for birds and nature:

“I once told Dad that what I really wanted was a new pair of binoculars and he laughed so loud he scared the birds from the trees.”

Now as his Bar Mitzvah approaches, Noah has another issue to deal with – his mother has asked his father to come across to be at the ceremony and the boy knows he’s going to have to spend a week with him. Sure enough, the two are soon on their way to the countryside for a bit of ‘bonding’.

As they leave the city behind, Noah feels himself more at home but clearly his dad feels quite the opposite. As the boy watches the sky for birds, his dad tries to start conversations that go nowhere. After parking up, it’s time for a walk – and quite an eventful one it turns out to be. After his dad has literally stumbled over an injured Nightjar on the forest floor, the schism between son and father really opens up over whether the bird should be saved or left to its inevitable fate.

The issue of the bird and whether it can or should be saved becomes a metaphor for the relationship between these two unhappy protagonists. I’m not going to tell you how the story develops and plays out because that would spoil the story for you when you come to read it for yourself but what I can say is that the two of them, father and son, find a way of moving towards each other and a recipe for how to develop their relationship in the future.

Ailsa Bathgate, the book’s editor at Barrington Stoke, captures the spirit of the book perfectly when she says:

“..this story with family at its heart shows how healing can happen when people really listen to each other and try to understand rather than judge another’s actions.”

The book also benefits from excellent illustrations by Richard Johnson that capture and enhance the overall mood of the storyline.

You’ll find this book comes as an excellent companion piece to Katya Balan’s earlier novel, Birdsong, that also features Noah and Annie and you can see a review of that book here.

You will be able to get a copy of the book from your local independent bookshop, who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have a copy on their shelves. Alternatively, you can go directly to the Barrington Stoke website and order it directly from them.

Terry Potter

June 2023