Birding With Yeats

A mother's journey through the critical years of her son's adolescence is recounted in lyrical fashion in this vivid and meditative memoir by a Toronto bookseller and first-time author. When early intimations that her son shares her love of birdwatching are confirmed during a trip to Vancouver Island, the author finds herself on an unusual path for bonding with her son. Yeats, who has grown up having Tennyson, Frost and Yeats read to him, hates the structures and social pressures of school but from an early age has been acutely responsive to natural beauty. The book is replete with birds, to a degree that might try the patience of some readers, but Thomson incorporates those details into her reflections so seamlessly that even readers who aren't birdwatchers will be engaged. Tactile and emotive evocations of nature, a profoundly Canadian love of cottaging and travel, and some almost startling descriptions of places from Ontario to the Galapagos Islands form the backdrop for this coming of age story. Yeat's relationship with his mother must change as he grows up, but in Thomson's touching account we see that he is ready for the next step and the ways she helped him get there. (June)