Amidst COVID-19, planetary and personal upheavals, fourteen stories pay homage to kindness. From Australia to the Philippines and other corners of the world, across cultures and species, we meet, connect, console. Always there are birds that inspire us to remember kindness and remember kindly. We are consoled, because there is unkindness too, that snag in the breath, that shadow of a wing. An oriole sings to a dying father. A bleeding heart dove saves the day. A quarrel over cockatoos attends the laying of the dead. A crow wakes a woman's resolve. Kindness cannot self-isolate. It moves both ways and all ways, like breath.

Vernon the toad takes the silent Bird on a journey in hopes of finding Bird'shome. Full color.

Eleven-year-old December knows everything about birds, and everything about getting kicked out of foster homes. All she has of her biological mum is the book she left behind, The Complete Guide to Birds, Volume One, and a photo with a message: 'In flight is where you'll find me.' December knows she's truly a bird, just waiting for the day she transforms and flies away to reunite with her mum. The scar on her back must be where her wings have started to blossom – she just needs to practise and to find the right tree. She has no choice; it's the only story that makes sense. When she's placed with Eleanor, a new foster mum who runs a taxidermy business and volunteers at a wildlife rescue, December begins to see herself and what home means in a new light. But the story she tells herself about her past is what's kept December going this long, and she doesn't know if she can let go of it ... even if changing her story might mean that she can finally find a place where she belongs.

In Brave Birds, cut-paper artist and writer Maude White presents an entirely new collection of sixty-five stunning cut-paper birds. As a source of inspiration, each bird is paired with an original message of kindness and strength associated with its particular traits to encourage bravery and perseverance. Inside, you’ll find birds for experiencing Joy, Creativity, Patience, Kindness, Resilience, Communication, Strength, Awareness, Action, and Transformation, and each composition reflects thousands of intricate cuts, lending an astounding level of texture to these delicate and ethereal birds. Appealing to any bird lover or collector of bird art, Brave Birds is a beautiful resource for those wishing to practice a life of kindness and empathy.

A debut novel already destined to be a book club favorite. “With its deft interweaving of psychological complexity and riveting narrative momentum, with its gorgeous prose and poetic justice, The Gravity of Birds is about sibling rivalry, tragedies, and resurrections. And it’s irresistibly exquisite” (San Francisco Chronicle). Forty-four years after the brilliant young painter, Thomas Bayber, first meets Alice and Natalie Kessler, Bayber unveils a never-before-seen work, Kessler Sisters—a provocative painting depicting the young Thomas, Alice, and Natalie. Bayber asks Dennis Finch, an art history professor, and Stephen Jameson, an eccentric young art authenticator, to sell the painting. But their task becomes more complicated when the artist requires that they first locate Alice and Natalie, who seem to have disappeared. Told in alternating chapters that weave revelations about the sisters’ past with clues Finch and Jameson discover in the present, this story sets three characters on a collision course with their histories, showing how families tear themselves apart and then try to bind themselves together again, not always creating the same fabric. The Gravity of Birds “combines the drama of warring sisters, the mystery of a missing painting, and the sorrow of lost love into a haunting elegy that will…leave you breathless” (Tiffany Baker, author of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County).

In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment.

Ten birds devise inventive ways to cross a river.

Writer Susan Tweit and her economist-turned-sculptor husband Richard Cabe had just settled into their version of a “good life” when Richard saw thousands of birds one day—harbingers of the brain cancer that would kill him two years later. This compelling and intimate memoir chronicles their journey into the end of his life, framed by their final trip together, a 4,000-mile-long delayed honeymoon road trip. As Susan and Richard navigate the unfamiliar territory of brain cancer treatment and learn a whole new vocabulary—craniotomies, adjuvant chemotherapy, and brain geography—they also develop new routines for a mindful existence, relying on each other and their connection to nature, including the real birds Richard enjoys watching. Their determination to walk hand in hand, with open hearts, results in profound and difficult adjustments in their roles. Bless the Birds is not a sad story. It is both prayer and love song, a guide to how to thrive in a world where all we hold dear seems to be eroding, whether simple civility and respect, our health and safety, or the Earth itself. It’s an exploration of living with love in a time of dying—whether personal or global—with humor, unflinching courage, and grace. And it is an invitation to choose to live in light of what we love, rather than what we fear.

A “highly imaginative and utterly exhilarating” (Thrillist) debut that is “the best of what science fiction can be: a thought-provoking, heartrending story about the choices that define our lives” (Kirkus Reviews, Best Debut Fiction and Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year). FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TORDOTCOM AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A mysterious child lands in the care of a solitary woman, changing both of their lives forever. I expected many things from this trip. I did not expect a family. A ship captain, unfettered from time. A mute child, burdened with unimaginable power. A millennia-old woman, haunted by lifetimes of mistakes. In this captivating debut of connection across space and time, these outsiders will find in each other the things they lack: a place of love and belonging. A safe haven. A new beginning. But the past hungers for them, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart. Praise for The Vanished Birds “This is the most impressive debut of 2020.”—Locus “This extraordinary science fiction epic, which delves deep into the perils of failing to learn from one’s mistakes, is perfect for fans of big ideas and intimate reflections.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A lyrical and moving narrative of space travel, found families, and lost loves set against an evocative space-opera background.”—Booklist (starred review) “The Vanished Birds finds an intimate heartbeat of longing in a saga of galactic progress and its crushing fallout. . . . A novel of vast scope that yet makes time for compassion, wonder, and poetry.”—Indra Das, author of The Devourers

When Red and Yellow go find worms, they don’t invite Blue and his feelings are hurt. So Blue decides to start a rumor, which quickly spirals out of control. Can he make things right before it’s too late? Includes a Note to Parents, Caregivers, and Professionals with more information on dealing with gossip and helping children build positive relationships.