We’re very pleased to welcome Jennifer Rosner to Skylark to discuss her beautiful, heart-wrenching novel, THE YELLOW BIRD SINGS.
Click here for free registration for this event.
In Poland, as World War II rages, a mother hides with her young daughter, a musical prodigy whose slightest sound may cost them their lives.
As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor’s barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. To soothe her daughter and pass the time, Róza tells her a story about a girl in an enchanted garden:
The girl is forbidden from making a sound, so the yellow bird sings. He sings whatever the girl composes in her head: high-pitched trills of piccolo; low-throated growls of contrabassoon. Music helps the flowers bloom.
In this make-believe world, Róza can shield Shira from the horrors that surround them. But the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must make an impossible choice: whether to keep Shira by her side or give her the chance to survive apart.
Inspired by the true stories of Jewish children hidden during World War II, Jennifer Rosner’s debut is a breathtaking novel about the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter. Beautiful and riveting, The Yellow Bird Sings is a testament to the triumph of hope—a whispered story, a bird’s song—in even the darkest of times.
Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author wrote: “The Yellow Bird Sings is a beautiful book in so many ways. Like Shira's imaginary bird, Jennifer Rosner's prose is lilting and musical, yet her tale of war's grave personal reality is gripping, heartrending, and so very real. Told beneath an overarching sky of the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter, this is a story readers will continue to ponder long afterward.”
We agree. Jennifer’s lovely book has been on our front table since it was published and we’ve sold a lot of copies, so we’re thrilled to welcome her to participate in our Must Read TV author series! It really is a gorgeous book.
You can purchase Jennifer’s book through our website by clicking here.
THE YELLOW BIRD SINGS is Jennifer Rosner’s debut novel, translated and published around the world. It tells the story of a Jewish mother and her young daughter, a musical prodigy, in hiding during WWII. Jennifer's previously published memoir, IF A TREE FALLS, is about raising her deaf daughters in a hearing, speaking world, and discovering genetic deafness in her family dating back to the 1800s. Her short writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, The Forward, and elsewhere, and her children's book, THE MITTEN STRING, was named a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable. In addition to writing, Jennifer teaches philosophy. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Currently, she teaches the Clemente Course in the Humanities, a college-level course for women living in economic distress. She lives in western Massachusetts with her family.
