Overview

In the vein of H is for Hawk and The Book of Eels, this moving memoir shines a light on the transformative power of nature as it tells the story of two boys, Jean and Johnny, who learned the language of birds. An accompanying PDF provides enhanced materials for this audiobook. This captivating book brings together two birds of a feather: Jean and Johnny, boys from very different worlds growing up in a small village in France. Jean is the genteel pharmacist's son, dressed in his Sunday best; Johnny's father is a rough, working-class sheep herder, always with the odor of animals clinging to him. Each year, over three hundred bird species visit their village, which intersects a major migratory flyway. The two boys' stories converge when Jean enters a bird-calling contest. He places second, and at only eleven years old becomes a child celebrity on the bird-calling circuit. Then Johnny starts to compete as well. At the annual bird festival, both boys are standouts, and a long, admiring rivalry develops between them, eventually culminating in the European championships. As they evolve as performers, the two boys' identities become more distinct: Jean is soft-spoken, while Johnny likes to play to the crowd. While most of their competitors are adult men, hunters who learned to call birds for sport, the two boys are fascinated with the pure beauty of birdsong, and in trying to transcend themselves through imitating birds. Their shared passion develops into an enduring partnership as performers, and they go on to tour the world in concert as the Bird Singers. This is a story as much about friendship as it is about birdsong. The setting is timeless and bucolic, with long walks to small village schools, games of pick-up soccer, and father-son birding trips. The chapters, which bounce back and forth between the two narrators, are woven through with descriptions of colorful characters in the bird-calling competition circuit and the kind of ornithological detail that can only come from a true passion for birds. There is poetry in the description of the different birds, from common seagulls to thrushes and bluethroats and nightingales, and something like communion in the way Jean and Johnny understand the feathered friends they imitate. Unique, evocative, and cinematic, The Bird Singers is the story of an unlikely friendship, sparked by a desire to speak with the avian world.

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Reviews

""A remarkable and delightfully eccentric story of dedication, resilience, and a true and deep connection with the natural world."" -- ""Lev Parikian, conductor and author of Taking Flight"" ""I loved the story of the two boys, of their relationships with the nature around them, their community, and their relationship with each other."" -- ""Marc Hamer, author of How to Catch a Mole"" ""It could be the start of a fantasy novel...But competitive bird callers Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse's dual memoir, The Bird Singers, is all true, and arguably more alluring."" -- ""Audubon magazine"" ""The boys' backgrounds are differentiated by the accents of narrators Jean-Marc Berne and Jean Brassard. Berne gives Johnny a rural working-class dialect represented by heavily accented English, while Brassard represents Jean's wealthier upbringing with less-accented speech...A bird-lover's delight!"" -- ""AudioFile"" ""A celebration of birdsong and a coming-of-age story like nothing you have read before. The Bird Singers is enchanting."" -- ""Candace Savage, author of Crows and Bird Brains""

""The Bird Singers is a remarkable and delightfully eccentric story of dedication, resilience, and a true and deep connection with the natural world."" -- ""Lev Parikian, conductor and author of Taking Flight"" ""A celebration of birdsong and a coming-of-age story like nothing you have read before. The Bird Singers is enchanting."" -- ""Candace Savage, author of Crows and Bird Brains"" ""I read this book in one sitting. I loved the story of the two boys, of their relationships with the nature around them, their community, and their relationship with each other."" -- ""Marc Hamer, author of the Indie Next Picks How to Catch a Mole""

Author Information

Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse first learned to imitate bird calls as children in northern France. Their rivalry at bird calling competitions gave way to friendship, and now to a partnership as performers. Although Boucault and Rasse are trained as a pharmacist and engineer respectively, their passion for birds led them to create a stage show under the name Les chanteurs d'oiseaux (the Bird Singers), recording an album and touring in France and internationally. Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse first learned to imitate bird calls as children in northern France. Their rivalry at bird-calling competitions gave way to friendship, then to a partnership as performers under the name Les Chanteurs d'Oiseaux, or The Bird Singers. Although Boucault is trained as a pharmacist and Rasse as an engineer, their passion for birds has led them to create numerous stage shows, record albums, and tour throughout France and internationally. Follow their work at chanteurs-oiseaux.com. Jean Brassard is a theater and television actor, singer, voice-over talent, audiobook narrator, and writer. He is the winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award.

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