The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
National Jewish Book Award Finalist
"Rosner's exquisite, heart-rending debut novel is proof that there's always going to be room for another story about World War II....This is an absolutely beautiful and necessary novel, full of heartbreak but also hope, about the bond between mother and daughter, and the sacrifices made for love." —The New York Times
In Poland, as World War II rages, a mother hides with her young daughter, a musical prodigy whose slightest sound may cost them their lives.
As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor's barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. To soothe her daughter and pass the time, Róza tells her a story about a girl in an enchanted garden:
The girl is forbidden from making a sound, so the yellow bird sings. He sings whatever the girl composes in her head: high-pitched trills of piccolo; low-throated growls of contrabassoon. Music helps the flowers bloom.
In this make-believe world, Róza can shield Shira from the horrors that surround them. But the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must make an impossible choice: whether to keep Shira by her side or give her the chance to survive apart.
Inspired by the true stories of Jewish children hidden during World War II, Jennifer Rosner's debut is a breathtaking novel about the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter. Beautiful and riveting, The Yellow Bird Sings is a testament to the triumph of hope—a whispered story, a bird's song—in even the darkest of times.
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Jennifer Rosner. (2020). The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel. Flatiron Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Jennifer Rosner. 2020. The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel. Flatiron Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Jennifer Rosner, The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel. Flatiron Books, 2020.
MLA Citation (style guide)Jennifer Rosner. The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel. Flatiron Books, 2020.
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- bioText: Jennifer Rosner is the author of the novels Once We Were Home and The Yellow Bird Sings, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award; the memoir If A Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard, about raising her deaf daughters in a hearing, speaking world; and a children's book, The Mitten String, a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable. Jennifer's writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, The Forward, Good Housekeeping, and elsewhere. She studied philosophy at Columbia and Stanford and lives in western Massachusetts with her family.
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National Jewish Book Award Finalist
"Rosner's exquisite, heart-rending debut novel is proof that there's always going to be room for another story about World War II....This is an absolutely beautiful and necessary novel, full of heartbreak but also hope, about the bond between mother and daughter, and the sacrifices made for love." —The New York Times
In Poland, as World War II rages, a mother hides with her young daughter, a musical prodigy whose slightest sound may cost them their lives.
As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor's barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. To soothe her daughter and pass the time, Róza tells her a story about a girl in an enchanted garden:
The girl is forbidden from making a sound, so the yellow bird sings. He sings whatever the girl composes in her head: high-pitched trills of piccolo; low-throated growls of contrabassoon. Music helps the flowers bloom.
In this make-believe world, Róza can shield Shira from the horrors that surround them. But the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must make an impossible choice: whether to keep Shira by her side or give her the chance to survive apart.
Inspired by the true stories of Jewish children hidden during World War II, Jennifer Rosner's debut is a breathtaking novel about the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter. Beautiful and riveting, The Yellow Bird Sings is a testament to the triumph of hope—a whispered story, a bird's song—in even the darkest of times.- reviews
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January 20, 2020
Rosner’s moving if unsurprising debut novel (after the memoir If a Tree Falls) follows a mother and daughter’s struggles to survive the Holocaust. In 1941, after Jewish Róża’s parents and husband are killed by the Nazis in Poland,
she finds refuge for herself and her daughter, five-year-old Shira, in the barn of Henryk and his wife, Krystyna, gentiles who had patronized her family bakery, though Róża is only able to extend their stay by sleeping with Henryk. Rosner is at her best in the book’s earliest sections, as she conveys Róża’s efforts to balance comfort for Shira with the need to keep their presence in the barn a secret. Róża cleverly enlists Shira’s cooperation in keeping quiet by spinning stories of a young girl and a yellow bird that can voice the musical compositions written by the child. After a year of shelter, Nazi troops tell Henryk they will appropriate the barn, and Róża reluctantly consents to a plan crafted by Krystyna for her and Shira to escape separately. With Shira hidden in a convent and Róża fleeing through the snow-covered woods, Rosner switches between points of view to craft a wrenching chronicle of their separate journeys, though the conclusion suffers from schmaltz. This will offer few surprises to avid readers of Holocaust fiction.
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February 1, 2020
Rosner's debut novel is a World War II story with a Room-like twist, one that also deftly examines the ways in which art and imagination can sustain us. Five-year-old Shira is a prodigy. She hears entire musical passages in her head, which "take shape and pulse through her, quiet at first, then building in intensity and growing louder." But making sounds is something Shira is not permitted to do. She and her mother, Róża, are Jews who are hiding in a barn in German-occupied Poland. Soldiers have shot Róża's husband and dragged her parents away, and after a narrow escape, mother and daughter cower in a hayloft day and night, relying on the farmer and his wife to keep them safe from neighbors and passing patrols. The wife sneaks Shira outside for fresh air; the husband visits Róża late at night in the hayloft to exact his price. To keep Shira occupied and quiet the rest of the time, Róża spins tales of a little girl and a yellow bird in an enchanted but silent garden menaced by giants; only the bird is allowed to sing. But when Róża is offered a chance to hide Shira in an orphanage, she must weigh her daughter's safety against her desire to keep the girl close. Rosner builds the tension as the novel progresses, wisely moving the action out of the barn before the premise grows tired or repetitive. This is a Holocaust novel, but it's also an effective work of suspense, and Rosner's understanding of how art plays a role in our lives, even at the worst of times, is impressive. A mother and her child-prodigy daughter struggle to survive the Holocaust by telling stories and remembering the power of music.COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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February 15, 2020
Five-year-old Shira must stay absolutely silent in the barn where she and her mother are hiding. It is summer 1941 in Poland, and they have fled their town, where Shira's grandparents had been hauled off and her father shot after digging trenches. Shira's mother, R�za, relies on the kind looks the owner of the barn once gave her at their bakery, and for the time being his wife seems pulled by maternal instinct to protect the young girl. But the farmer expects his own payment from R�za every night. Under the constant threat of danger, R�za tells Shira about a magical garden with a little bird who can sing the beautiful compositions that run through her head. But as the scratches R�za makes on the rafter to mark each day begin to number in the dozens, then hundreds, it's clear that she must make a drastic change and risk separation to keep her daughter safe. This stunning debut novel sings with the power of a mother's love and the heartbreaking risks she'll endure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)
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Starred review from December 1, 2019
DEBUT As Nazis descend on Poland, rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps, Roza and five-year-old daughter Shira survive by hiding in the barn of a grudging neighbor. To stay safe, they must stay still. But musical prodigy Shira shimmers with music, so Roza tells her the story of an enchanted garden where a yellow bird does the little girl's singing for her: "The girl is forbidden from making a sound, so the yellow bird sings. He sings whatever the girl composes in her head: high-pitched trills of piccolo; low-throated growls of contrabassoon." But the danger doesn't abate, and soon Roza realizes that she must send her daughter away to save her. As Shira is hidden in plain sight at a convent, where violin training reveals the virtuoso she is to become, Roza vanishes into the forest, where she initially survives on her own and finally finds love and meaning at an encampment of Jewish resisters. But will she ever see Shira again? VERDICT Memoirist and award-winning children's author Rosner challenges the Holocaust with a touch of magic (the yellow bird appears throughout), clarifying a dangerous time and place even as she offers a vibrant, affecting portrait of the mother-daughter relationship. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/19.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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October 1, 2019
When all the Jews in their town are killed during World War II, Roza and five-year-old daughter Shira survive by hiding in a barn. Shira is a prodigy whose whole body thrums with music, and her mother keeps her safely silent by making up the story about a little girl, her enchanted garden, and the yellow bird who sings the girl's songs for her. An adult debut novel from the author of the memoir If a Tree Falls and the award-winning children's book The Mitten String.
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
February 1, 2020
Rosner's debut novel is a World War II story with a Room-like twist, one that also deftly examines the ways in which art and imagination can sustain us. Five-year-old Shira is a prodigy. She hears entire musical passages in her head, which "take shape and pulse through her, quiet at first, then building in intensity and growing louder." But making sounds is something Shira is not permitted to do. She and her mother, R�ża, are Jews who are hiding in a barn in German-occupied Poland. Soldiers have shot R�ża's husband and dragged her parents away, and after a narrow escape, mother and daughter cower in a hayloft day and night, relying on the farmer and his wife to keep them safe from neighbors and passing patrols. The wife sneaks Shira outside for fresh air; the husband visits R�ża late at night in the hayloft to exact his price. To keep Shira occupied and quiet the rest of the time, R�ża spins tales of a little girl and a yellow bird in an enchanted but silent garden menaced by giants; only the bird is allowed to sing. But when R�ża is offered a chance to hide Shira in an orphanage, she must weigh her daughter's safety against her desire to keep the girl close. Rosner builds the tension as the novel progresses, wisely moving the action out of the barn before the premise grows tired or repetitive. This is a Holocaust novel, but it's also an effective work of suspense, and Rosner's understanding of how art plays a role in our lives, even at the worst of times, is impressive. A mother and her child-prodigy daughter struggle to survive the Holocaust by telling stories and remembering the power of music.COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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National Jewish Book Award Finalist
"Rosner's exquisite, heart-rending debut novel is proof that there's always going to be room for another story about World War II....This is an absolutely beautiful and necessary novel, full of heartbreak but also hope, about the bond between mother and daughter, and the sacrifices made for love." —The New York Times
In Poland, as World War II rages, a mother hides with her young daughter, a musical prodigy whose slightest sound may cost them their lives.
As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor's barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. To soothe her daughter and pass the time, Róza tells her a story about a girl in an enchanted garden:
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