Birds Of A Feather

One of the books I finished during The Best Weekend EVER! was one that had been on my TBR pile for awhile.  The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell was one I had bought last summer and wanted to save for a literal rainy day,  I then put it on my overstuffed book shelf and promptly forgot about it until Hubbin found it and asked me what it was.  His finding it was perfect timing to start my fall reading so off I went.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Aviary is about Clara Dooley a 12 year old girl who has spent her life in the old Glendoveer mansion with only her mother, the cook Ruby and the old widowed Mrs. Glendoveer.  Clara has been told her whole life that she has a heart condition that makes it necessary to stay at the house and avoid any strenuous activity, this has led to Clara spending the vast majority of her life inside the walls of the Glendoveer mansion.  Besides the humans there is a huge aviary full of five different birds.  A myna bird, a cockatoo, a grackle, a kiskadee and a honey creeper .  These birds have been around longer then Clara and her mother have lived at the mansion.  One day when Clara is out tending the birds (even though they frighten her) the myna bird says "Eliott" very clearly.  Clara tells this to Mrs. Glendoveer and is told that Elliot is the name of her

youngest son who was kidnapped when he was a mere 5 months old along with his five older siblings.  Sadly Mrs. Glendoveer dies and leaves the house with a small stipend to Clara's mother and Ruby with the stipulation that they keep it in the family until the end of a set 50 year period, which will be up in a few months.  This change cause Clara's mother and Ruby to run errands outside of the house, leaving Clara completely alone for the first time in her life.  Clara starts exploring the house, discovering a long locked up nursery.  While she is up there she catches sight of a girl on her way home from school.  The next day a note is pushed through the slot of the door asking telling Clara that she had been seen at the window by the little girl the day before (who's name is Daphne) and would like to be her friend.  Clara agrees but has to sneak her friend in for visits because her mother does not want her playing with any outsiders. Daphne is curious about all the mysterious bad juju the house seems to have with the local town folk, Clara being stuck inside the estate has no idea what happened.  At some point there is a huge storm and one of the birds, the small honeycreeper is injured.  Clara takes it inside and nurses it back to health, discovering along the way that it can answer yes or no questions.  Oddly enough the bird likes to dance as well.  Clara snoops around some more and finally figures out what happened to the Glendoveer children.  The nanny had helped to kidnap the children and taken them out on a boat to take them to one of the little islands when a storm came up and sank the ship.  The bodies of the nanny and the five older children were found shortly thereafter.  Nobody knows for sure what happened, but there was nasty speculation that the children's father (a magician) had done it as a stunt to revive his show.

 Eventually Clara discovers that the birds are actually the spirits of the dead children, Mr. Glendoveer had cast a spell to bind them to the bird bodies, stuck until all six children were reunited.  The problem being that the youngest Elliot was never found.  In the almost 50 years since the incident the children have been trapped as birds waiting for there baby brother to release them.  Clara's mother finally figures out everything that she has been doing and gets very upset, Clara finally puts her foot down, asking why she is stuck at home when she feels fine, and why can't she have friends, and why is her mother afraid of her finding the truth about the Glendoveer family?!?  Clara's mother tells her that her father grew up an orphan with a cruel adoptive father.  One day he found cuff links that had belonged to Mr. Glendoveer and was convinced that he was the baby Elliot that had gone missing.  He set of to discover if this was true and dissapeared.  Clara's mother having a young baby and a missing husband went to the mansion to see if he had appeared there, he was not there, but that was when she got the position of live in caretaker.  She kept Clara hidden because she was afraid she might get mixed up with all the badness too. Clara's mother allows Daphne to come over and the girls devise a trap for a hypnotist that worked with Mr. Glendoveer for his show.  The birds have become very conversant with Clara and are able to tell her everything they are able to remember, including how the nanny had "cold eyes" which leads

Clara and Daphne to realize that she had been hypnotized. The Hypnotist (who is quit old now) and his burly bodyguard Mr. Dooley are eventually trapped in the Aviary and confess to everything.  The hypnotist did it because his family had cut him off when he went on stage, turns out he did not need the money as the family took him back eventually.  Mr. Dooley was the thug who was manning the boat during the kidnapping and managed to save baby Elliot, raising him as his own. When Elliot went back to try and find the hidden money the Hypnotist hypnotized him into staying on the island for the last 10 years.  Elliot returns to his childhood home and to his beloved wife and daughter.  The money is recovered, the spirits of the children are set free and it is assumed they all live happily ever after.

Depending on how you read this book, it is either an enduring story of friendship, family and period elegance, or it is a meh mystery with some non spooky ghost elements.  I have read several reviews of this book (after I had finished it of course, didn't want to be influenced ahead of time) and most people seemed to look at it as less a mystery/ghost story and more of a period, Gothic children's story.  I think it works best if thought of in that manner.  The character of Clara is great, the author set up a believable reason for her to be isolated, which gave credibility to her almost complete naivete when it came to the family history.  It made the process of finding things out with her exciting instead of eye-rolling.  Daphne, who may be my favorite character ever is just awesome.  She is spunky and dramatic and reminds me a bit of Anne of Green Gables getting her ideas from books (especially Boys Adventure Magazine).  She is a true friend to Clara with no stupid interruptions from boys or jealousy or any annoying stuff like that.  The relationship between Clara and her mother is also wonderful and about as realistic as a book with ghosts and spirit bird children can be.  The

birds were a pretty cool addition, kind of creepy and yet not scary.  The setting was awesome, I totally want to go visit this mansion and poke around in all the rooms now. The style was a great throwback/reminiscent of the way books used to be written before they all had to be preachy or super dark or hip, when family and friendship where the most important part of life, and telling a good story is all a book needed.  The mystery itself was not that impressive, I had it all figured out in the first couple of chapters and the biggest mysteries were solved about 2/3 of the way through the book, not leaving a whole lot of tension for a dark and stormy night which I would have preferred given that it had all the elements for a bit more of a good old fashioned ghost story.  Overall it was a great little book, suitable from anybody from the 9 year old range all the through the adult who loves a good period tale.  The story is simple, sweet, fun, and with just enough supernatural to make it a bit spooky but not scary (so no nightmares for you wussypants :-) ). Also this book has one of the coolest covers ever.  I give it 7 out of 10 peacock feathers.
What sort of YA books do you like to read?  What time period is your favorite to read?  What animal would you want your soul to be trapped in for 50 years?