THE HOPE AND HORROR OF ‘THE YELLOW BIRD SINGS’
Jennifer Rosner’s debut novel “The Yellow Bird Sings” tells the story of a Jewish mother and her daughter hiding in Nazi controlled Poland during World War II. Love, empathy and fear — as well as a yellow songbird — wind through this tale of an unbreakable bond between mother and child. The novel demonstrates Ms. Rosner’s deep understanding of the terrors of the Holocaust.
Róża and her 5-year-old daughter Shira go into hiding after the rest of their family is killed by German soldiers. They find refuge in the barn of their neighbor, Henryk, and his wife Krystyna, where Shira learns to make herself invisible among the hay. Henryk and Krystyna feed and protect the pair, but Róża must sleep with Henryk nightly to earn their stay and Shira falls sick in the miserable conditions.
To soothe Shira and pass the time, her mother whispers stories about a yellow bird who can sing the songs Shira hears in her head. The imagined bird stays with Shira when she is separated from her mother and moves to a convent to hide among the young orphans. Meanwhile, her mother must go on the run in the snowcovered woods, battling hunger and cold, until it is safe to return for her daughter.
Music conveys Shira’s somber nostalgia in a way Ms. Rosner cannot do with pure description. Playing, imagining and writing music becomes the only way Shira can connect to her past while in hiding. In the barn, Shira’s imaginary bird sings when Shira can’t. Constantly hushed by her worried mother as the two hide among the hay bales, Shira’s bird is her form of expression.
The bird is an interesting feature in Shira’s life in the barn, but later at the convent, Shira can make music in other ways, singing and praying, and she even learns to play the violin. Ms. Rosner’s use of the bird feels forced once Shira doesn’t have to keep quiet anymore. The bird trope offers a vehicle to express Shira’s inner monologue, but it remains frustratingly simple and doesn’t develop even as Shira’s circumstances change.
As the sweet bird image becomes trite, other expressions of music, such as Shira’s relationship with her violin teacher, give readers a far deeper understanding of her longing for home and for the folk tunes that connect her with memories of life before the war began. Ms. Rosner bases her narrative on true Holocaust stories, giving readers details that demonstrate the challenges of the war, fromżthe bland mushroom soup Ró a survives on while hiding in the snow-covered woods to Shira’s hair-bleaching ritual that allows her to blend in with the Catholic children at the convent.
Even through these beautiful details, however, the characters come across as one-dimensional.
Ms. Rosner understands the horrors of the Holocaust, but her story doesn’t always convey the complexity of tragedy — her characters’ emotions are unnaturally stagnant. Although readers find themselves wanting to turn the page to see what happens in the end, the middle chapters feel repetitive, as the mother and daughter’s emotions evolve little over the course of the book.
The novel alternates between Shira’s story and Róża’s, but a child-like naiveté pervades. Sevenyear-old Shira’s perspective provides an especially touching window into the trauma of the war, but her view is limited. This childish voice sometimes falls flat, and doesn’t demonstrate the full range of emotion through the tragic storyline.
It is evident this is Ms. Rosner’s debut work of adult fiction, following her children’s book “The Mitten String” and her memoir “If a Tree Falls.” The language can seem oversimplified to an adult reader, but “The Yellow Bird Sings” is a great candidate to introduce younger and teen readers to Holocaust stories, though parents and educators should be aware that the book includes difficult topics like rape and murder.
In a story full of loss, readers will hope for a satisfying ending. Jennifer Rosner gives us one, tying a bow on the novel in the final chapter. But her ending, too, is a bit far-fetched, risking sensationalization. Ms. Rosner’s debut novel “The Yellow Bird Sings” is satisfying and sweet, but adds little new perspective to the vast Holocaust literary genre.