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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Paterson, Katherine

Birdie's Bargain

240 pp. | Candlewick | October, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5362-1559-5 $17.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-5362-2340-8 $17.99
(2) 4-6 Paterson's latest novel opens with Birdie (a nickname for Elizabeth) crying as her mother drives her father to the airport for his third deployment to Iraq. It's significant that Birdie is wearing an "I [heart] Jesus" shirt, because the bargain referred to in the book's title is one she has made with God to keep her father safe: "I'll stop acting like a jerk, if you'll start acting like God and take care of us for a change." To cut costs, the family moves in with Gran. The first person Birdie meets is fellow fifth-grader Alice Suggs, who comes on very aggressively, grabbing her arm and bragging that her father outranks Birdie's. Birdie doesn't enjoy being with her, but she remembers the Bible verse "Be ye kind, one to another" and continues to go to Alice's house and eat lunch with her at school. When Birdie's father is seriously injured in Iraq, she feels shocked and betrayed: "She was mad, so mad, mad at God, at Mom, at Gran, even at Daddy, at everything in the whole stinking world." As the protagonist copes first with the move and then with her crisis of faith, Paterson, using skillful omniscient narration, rounds the story with specific physical details and depicts the character's emotional arc with authenticity and empathy.
Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

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