Wild Bird
by Leanne Baugh
Red Deer Press, 2021
ISBN 978-0-88995-636-0 (sc)
$14.95, 336 pp, ages 13+
reddeerpress.com
British Columbian novelist Leanne Baugh has written a classic coming-of-age story. Her protagonist is English emigrant Kate Harding, a 16-year-old resident of the rough little settlement of Victoria in the 1860s. Kate’s parents have fallen on hard times despite the fact that her father is a physician. When an older brother back in England drops out of medical studies, the family faces further financial strain, and all young Kate wishes to do is succeed in that chosen field. Unfortunately, she finds herself constrained by the cult of domesticity that precludes women from pursuing professions, and though she falls for a handsome English sailor, Kate is instead driven to accept an offer of marriage from a fairly despicable, but well-heeled, local businessman. The way that society is portrayed in this work has a ring of authenticity. Newcomers either despise or pity the Indigenous Peoples of the region, death hovers near whether from childbirth or smallpox epidemics, and Blacks and Asians are completely marginalized. In the end, a windfall from a surprising source offers the Harding family a way out of their hard times, and Kate sets out for New York in order to pursue her dreams.
Classroom Connections: This novel is well-researched and very well-written. Based on archival and secondary sources, the work paints a realistic portrait of a generally racist, sexist, class-ridden society where Indigenous Peoples form a permanent underclass. Leanne Baugh explains in an interview at the end of the book why Wild Bird should prove attractive to modern teenage readers since there “are interesting parallels in terms of women’s rights, the MeToo movement, Indigenous reconciliation, and now the Covid-19 pandemic.” Certainly, high school Language Arts teachers looking to foster debate on how, over the last century and a half, things have changed in Canada, or perhaps stayed much the same, could use this as a powerful catalyst.
Review by George Sheppard.
This review is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Winter 2022 issue.
