Review of “The Bird Prison” by Tuula Pere, PhD

Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

The Bird Prison is yet another deep, thought-provoking children's book by the incomparable Tuula Pere, our 2023 Author of the Year!

This book seems to be a very tactful and very subtle allegory for serious issues like racial segregation, immigration, and the treatment/acceptance of minorities and those who are different.

The book features Griselda, a proud, highfalutin, and pretentious perfectionist who treasures her flower garden as if it were the sacred Garden of Eden. She especially values its uniformity and homogeneity in terms of the flowers only being red (roses) and pink (rhododendrons).

So, when different-colored birds arrive, it disrupts what Griselda views as the perfection of the garden. A bluebird lays a nest of eggs in the garden but is berated by Griselda and told that she doesn't “fit” the garden. A yellow bird also lays a nest of eggs there, but is likewise rejected by Griselda who accuses her of ruining the “order and harmony” of the garden.

Even when the birds agree not to make any noise in exchange for being able to sit on their eggs, Griselda still finds a reason to persecute them and decides to place them in a bird cage.

The birds wrestle with why they're being rejected and persecuted. What wrong did they commit? What crime?

Having seemingly lost their freedom, the birds are approached by a friendly ant, of all things. The ant offers to help them escape, working with other ants to dig an escape tunnel out from the bottom of the cage.

The birds are able to escape, leaving the garden “silent” and “only pink and red again.” In other words, a lot of the diversity, creativity, and song that the birds brought is lost to Griselda due to her stubbornness and bigotry.

The book says so much in only about 20 or so pages.

Bringing this home a bit, it provides some commentary on why completely keeping outsiders (immigrants) out could negatively impact a country like the United States, the United Kingdom, or France, all of which have wrestled with this issue for the past decade or so.

Homogeneity (everyone being the same) may seem simpler, more harmonious, more orderly, and less chaotic, but it also leaves you open to a lot of issues that could threaten your survival as a people and a nation.

You can look at North Korea and Turkmenistan as two mostly-homogenous nations that have suffered from being closed off, struggling in areas like technological innovation and trade because of it.

Diversity brings creativity and fresh, new ideas. It's arguably one of the things that allowed the United States to overtake the Soviet Union during the Cold War as ethnic and racial minorities like Jews and Blacks were able to contribute to new technological and scientific innovations.

On a biological/evolutionary level, there's also the example of the Great Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852) in which potato blight was able to destroy a massive amount of crops due (in part) to a lack in diversity in potato gene pool that could've otherwise provided resistance to the mold responsible for the blight.

In Pere's book, we can see how the absence of the birds—who are beautiful, colorful, vibrant, and full of song—leaves a void in the garden and presumably Griselda's life going forward.

Check it out on Amazon!