Book Babblings

Nest by Esther Ehrlich 

The Nitty Gritty: Its 1972 and we are smack in the middle of Cape Cod. Not the usual setting for a children's novel, but here we find Naomi, affectionally nicknamed Chirp. Chipr's 'nest' is a neat little home with her older sister, her father and her mother. When chirps mother is diagnosed with MS, their perfect home comes crashing down around them. Chirps finds solace in bird-watching and a newfound friend in Joey, the slight bad boy across the street.

Nest follows Chirp, her family and her friend as she deals with her mother's illness and the fallout of the family unit, and the private world she creates in her 'nests'.

Opening Line: "I should have taken the shortcut home from my bird-watching spot at the salt marsh, because then I wouldn't have to walk past Joey Morell, whipping rocks against the telephone pole in front of his house as the sun goes down." 


The Good: I'm a fantasy girl through and through. I devour fantasy like a hungry hippo, but sometimes I need a break for all the fairy dust and goblins and vampires. Nest was a nice vacation. My childhood was nothing to write home about so its nice to read a sort of feel good book about a bygone time when kids were just kids. Without sexting and thots and all that garbage.

Nest is a story about a girl embarking on a journey to find herself and maybe the meaning of everything when her mom becomes ill.  Her mom, a dancer is sidelined by MS. Which sets the family on a collision course with tragedy. Today MS is manageable though not curable. In the 70s medical advances were not being made in the field of MS. Watching the family go through this is heartbreaking, and heartwarming. 

I love that this story could explore a friendship between a boy and a girl and nothing is expected of either in the love department. Yes they younger than the YA set but it seems like we have become obsessed with middle grades and YA books featuring a female leads and them in love triangles. Suzanne Collins was encouraged to take Gale from just a write in character to a love interest for Katniss to boast sales, and we see how well that did. Which is a shame. I think the story would have been better without that complication. 

For a book written by an adult through the eyes of a little girl I never got the sense that it was an adult writing as a child. Chirp had appropriate thoughts and observations. Ehrlich didn't take an adult and just age her down with a birthdate. A phenomenon we are seeing a lot of. Chirp was a true little girl in every sense of the word. It was very refreshing. Chirp explored her neighborhood, like any true adventurer would. She wrestled with her sister, something all girls do even though they make it seem like only boys and brothers are hands on with their siblings. I've tried all manner of WWF (I'm old school like that) moves on my sister. And runs around with her best friend Joey.


The Bad: The story went darker than I expected of a children's book. No I don't think kids books have to be about fairy tales and rainbows, but I think we need a little warning before we are slapped with mental illness and death. That's heavy stuff for children to deal with.

The story lagged a little bit in places. Sometimes it was a struggle to keep turing the page, but I stuck with it because I was invested in the character and the story at that point.

My Final Thoughts: This is a wonderful vacation from the YA sludge that is being churned out by the dozen these days. A proper tear jerker and a great way to open up dialogue between parents and children about a tough subject matter.