The Bird Singers - Jean Boucault, Johnny Rasse

“A mesmerizing tale like no other.”—Priyanka Kumar, author of Conversations with Birds“A beautiful book. The writing about birds—their songs and sounds, what birds mean to us, the wonder and joy they evoke in us—is among the most original, insightful, and enjoyable I’ve read.”—James Macdonald Lockhart, author of Wild Air: In Search of BirdsongThis captivating memoir takes readers into the eccentric world of competitive bird-calling—following the coming-of-age story of two boys who found their voice in the natural world.This captivating book brings together two birds of a feather: Jean and Johnny, boys from very different worlds growing up in a small village in France. Jean is the genteel pharmacist’s son, dressed in his Sunday best; Johnny’s father is a rough, working-class sheep herder, always with the odor of animals clinging to him. Each year, over three hundred bird species visit their village, which intersects a major migratory flyway.The two boys’ stories converge when Jean enters a bird-calling contest. He places second, and at only eleven years old becomes a child celebrity on the bird-calling circuit. Then Johnny starts to compete as well. At the annual bird festival, both boys are standouts, and a long, admiring rivalry develops between them, eventually culminating in the European championships.As they evolve as performers, the two boys’ identities become more distinct: Jean is soft-spoken, while Johnny likes to play to the crowd. While m
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