The Birds on the Trees

Last updated

First edition (publ. Longman) The Birds on the Trees.jpg
First edition (publ. Longman)

The Birds on the Trees is a novel by Nina Bawden first published in 1970 about a middle-class English family whose 19-year-old son does not live up to his parents' expectations.

The Birds on the Trees was announced, on 26 March 2010, as one of six books that had been shortlisted for the "Lost Man Booker Prize" of 1970, "a contest delayed by 40 years because a reshuffling of the fledgeling competition’s rules that year disqualified nearly a year’s worth of high-quality fiction from consideration". [1]

Plot summary

Toby Flower is a shy, reticent youth who has grown his hair long and who has started wearing a burnous. His father, an editor, and his mother, a novelist, are thrown into despair when Toby is expelled from school because he has been taking drugs. At a loss as to what to do in order to help their son, Charlie and Maggie Flower keep projecting their own goals and aspirations onto their son. They still talk about his going to university despite Toby's assertion that he is not interested in further education. Toby eventually breaks out of that stifling atmosphere, leaves home and moves to London, where he lives in a basement flat without keeping in touch with his parents.

Charlie and Maggie Flower finally turn to a psychiatrist friend of theirs who agrees to have Toby hospitalised and treated for mental illness. As it happens, in London Toby associates with Hermia, the psychiatrist's young but rather unattractive daughter, and makes her pregnant. When their parents conspire and talk Hermia into having an abortion, they unwittingly cut the last remaining bond with their son. Toby fetches Hermia from her parents' home, and the young couple move in with Toby's maternal grandmother, a frail old woman who all along has been sympathetic to the young people's needs.

Related Research Articles

Neverland Fictional island in Peter Pan and other works of J. M. Barrie

Neverland is a fictional island featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is an imaginary faraway place where Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and some other imaginary beings and creatures live.

Toby Stephens British actor

Toby Stephens is an English actor who has appeared in films in the UK, US and India. He is known for the roles of Bond villain Gustav Graves in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day, Edward Fairfax Rochester in a BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre and in his role as Captain Flint in the Starz television series Black Sails. Stephens was one of the leads in the Netflix science fiction series Lost in Space, which began streaming in 2018.

Hermia Character in A Midsummer Nights Dream

Hermia is a fictional character from Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. She is a girl of ancient Athens named for Hermes, the Greek god of trade.

Charlie Bone is a series of ten children's fantasy, school and adventure novels written by British author Jenny Nimmo, first published by Egmont 2002 to 2010. It is sometimes called "the Charlie Bone series" after its main character. A series of five books was announced in advance, completed in 2006, and sometimes the books were called the "Red King Quintet" until its continuation.

<i>Transamerica</i> (film) 2005 independent comedy-drama film directed by Duncan Tucker

Transamerica is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Duncan Tucker, and starring Felicity Huffman and Kevin Zegers. Released by IFC Films and The Weinstein Company, the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2005, and to theaters in the United States on December 2, 2005.

The talk about sex is generally the occasion in most children's lives when their parents explain what sex is and how to do it, along with all the other kinds of sex.

Tiffany "Lochy" McLachlan is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Neighbours, played by Amber Kilpatrick. She made her first on-screen appearance on 23 October 1989. Tiffany is described as being a little terror and always getting into mischief. She becomes friends with Toby Mangel and manages to get him into trouble too. Tiffany's storylines often saw her tomboyish and mischievous sides come out. She attacks a family of Magpies after being dive bombed by one, she lies to her aunt that Kerry Bishop is mistreating her, she almost drowns after going to the beach and convinces Joe Mangel that he has been cursed. Tiffany departed on 21 June 1990 after deciding to join her parents in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

<i>Troubles</i> (novel) 1970 novel by J. G. Farrell

Troubles is a 1970 novel by J. G. Farrell. The plot concerns the dilapidation of a once grand Irish hotel, in the midst of the political upheaval during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). It is the first instalment in Farrell's acclaimed 'Empire Trilogy', preceding The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip. Although there are similar themes within the three novels, they do not form a sequence of storytelling.

Maggie OFarrell Irish-British novelist, born 1972

Maggie O'Farrell RSL is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, After You'd Gone, won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award: for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. She appeared in the Waterstones 25 Authors for the Future. Her memoir I am, I am, I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her novel Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and the fiction prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards.

Beatniks (novel)

Beatniks: An English Road Movie (1997) is a novel by British author Toby Litt set in Bedford in The United Kingdom in 1995, and concerns the adventures of a group of young people who admire the Beat Writers and Musicians of the 1950s and 1960s America. Initially published by Secker & Warburg in 1997.

<i>Flowers for Algernon</i> 1959 science fiction short story and novel by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, later expanded by him into a novel and subsequently adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. The novel was published in 1966 and was joint winner of that year's Nebula Award for Best Novel.

<i>Good Luck Charlie</i> American sitcom

Good Luck Charlie is an American sitcom that originally aired on Disney Channel from April 4, 2010, to February 16, 2014. The series' creators, Phil Baker and Drew Vaupen, wanted to create a program that would appeal to entire families, not just children. It focuses on the Duncan family of Denver as they adjust to the births of their fourth and fifth children, Charlotte "Charlie" and Toby. In each episode, Teddy Duncan adds to a video diary that contains advice for Charlie about their family and life as a teenager. Teddy tries to show Charlie what she might go through when she is older for future reference. Each video diary ends with Teddy saying the eponymous phrase, "Good luck, Charlie".

Toby Alone, originally published as La Vie suspendue, or A Life Suspended, is a children's novel by French author Timothée de Fombelle. Sarah Ardizzone's translation won the 2009 Marsh Award. The book was later followed by a sequel, entitled Toby and the Secrets of the Tree.

The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970 as the books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the prize was awarded to books published in the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. The prize was won by J. G. Farrell for Troubles.

Jasper Jones, is a 2009 novel by Australian writer Craig Silvey. It has won and been shortlisted for several major awards including being shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The novel was selected by the American Library Association as 'Best Fiction for Young Adults' in their 2012 list.

<i>The Lost Gate</i>

The Lost Gate is a fantasy novel by Orson Scott Card. It is the first novel in the Mither Mages trilogy. The second novel is The Gate Thief and the third one is Gatefather.

<i>The Sky Is Everywhere</i> Young adult novel

The Sky Is Everywhere is a 2010 young adult novel by Jandy Nelson as her debut novel. It tells the story of an American high school girl, Lennie Walker, struggling to cope with the sudden death of her older sister. Lennie becomes romantically involved both with her sister's former fiancé, who shares Lennie's grief and loss, and with a new boy in town, who shares Lennie's love of music. Ultimately, Lennie must choose between the two relationships. A film adaptation from A24 and Apple TV+ was released on February 11, 2022. It stars Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, Jacques Colimon, Cherry Jones, and Jason Segel.

Infected (<i>The Walking Dead</i>) 2nd episode of the fourth season of The Walking Dead

"Infected" is the second episode of the fourth season of the post-apocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead, which aired on AMC on October 20, 2013. The episode was written by Angela Kang and directed by Guy Ferland.

<i>Wolf Hollow</i> (novel) 2016 young adult novel by Lauren Wolk

Wolf Hollow is a young adult novel written by Lauren Wolk, published by Dutton Children's Books in 2016. It is set in rural western Pennsylvania during the autumn of 1943 and describes how the protagonist, Annabelle "learned how to lie" and "that what I said and what I did mattered" in relation to two interlopers in her life: the bully Betty Glengarry, and the mysterious drifter Toby. It was named a Newbery Honor book in 2016.

References

  1. Hoyle, Ben (26 March 2010). "Author waits to hear if she has won 'lost Booker' prize 40 years on". The Times . Retrieved 7 April 2010.