Synopses & Reviews
In this captivating memoir, Suzie Gilbert tells the rollicking story of how she turned her family life upside down to pursue her unusual passion for rehabilitating wild birds.
Through adolescence and into adulthood, Suzie Gilbert struggled to find her calling. But when she took a job working at the animal hospital near her home in New York's Hudson Valley, her passion was born. She began bringing abused and unwanted parrots home and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center, activities she continued for the next eleven years, even as she started a family. Then came the ultimate commitment to her cause: turning her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center.
Gilbert chronicles the years of her chaotic household-cum-bird-hospital with delightful wit, recounting the confusion that ensued as her husband and two young children struggled to live in a house where parrots shrieked Motown songs, nestling robins required food every twenty minutes, and recuperating herons took over the spare bathroom. Gradually, however, the birds came to represent the value of compassion and the importance of pursuing even the most unlikely of dreams.
Often funny, sometimes painful, Gilbert's encounters with these beautiful creatures reveal profound truths not only about animals but also about our own lives—lessons of birth and death, suffering and empathy, holding on and letting go.
Original, lyrical, and highly entertaining, Flyaway will forever change the way you see this amazing member of the animal kingdom.
Review
“Readers will acquire education plenty from Gilberts discussions of the creatures she encounters and the challenges rehabbers face.” Kirkus Reviews
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“Unique and engaging . . . [Gilbert] shows reveals in elegant prose how every creature has value, and how a voice for one is voice for all.” Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds
Review
“Gilberts prose reads easily, ushered along by her clear, knowledgeable explanations of biology, medicine, natural history, nutrition, and animal behavior. . . . Strongly recommended.” Henry T. Armistead, Library Journal
Review
“Charms, delights, and educates while providing a fascinating tale of love and devotion to the feathered creatures that share our increasingly crowded world.” Joanna Burger, author of The Parrot Who Owns Me
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“Fascinating . . . . A testament to the challenges we all face when we love another being.” Stacey O'Brien, author of Wesley the Owl
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“Funny and insightful. . . . Most of us see birds through binoculars and windows. Suzie Gilbert has entered their lives.” Carl Zimmer, author of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea
Synopsis
"Flyaway" tells the remarkable winning story of a housewife from a Hudson River town who takes in injured wild birds to rehabilitate them, in the midst of her chaotic country household that is already filled with kids, pets, and a husband.
Synopsis
“A delightful must-read…. It charms, delights, and educates while providing a fascinating tale of love and devotion to the feathered creatures that share our increasingly crowded world.” — Joanna Burger, author of
The Parrot Who Owns Me “Gilberts ethics and talent for writing have made her the perfect author to bring the world of wildlife rehabilitation to the reader.” — Wilson Journal
In this captivating memoir, Suzie Gilbert tells the rollicking story of how she turned her family life upside down to pursue her unusual passion for rehabilitating wild birds. Fans of Michael Pollan, James Herriot, and Elizabeth Marshal Thomas are sure to find much to cherish in Flyaway.
About the Author
Suzie Gilbert lives with her husband and two children in the Hudson Valley of New York. A longtime bird enthusiast, she began volunteering at a raptor rehabilitation center in 1990 and wrote the children's book Hawk Hill before opening her home-based bird rehabilitation center, Flyaway, Inc., in 2002.