Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings - Softcover

Gilbert, Suzie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061563137 ISBN 13: 9780061563133

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2010

Synopsis

Suzie Gilbert discovered her true calling when she began working at a local animal hospital. Eventually, she started bringing abused and unwanted parrots home, and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center. From there it was a short flight to her ultimate commitment: Flyaway, Inc., the nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center she ran out of her own home.

With heart and delightful wit, Gilbert chronicles daily life in her household-cum-bird-hospital, and recounts the resulting chaos as she, her husband, and their two young children struggled to live in a home where parrots shrieked Motown songs and recuperating herons took over the spare bathroom. Flyaway is a remarkable story of compassion for and dedication to beautiful creatures—and the importance of pursuing even the most unlikely of dreams.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In this captivating memoir, Suzie Gilbert tells the rollicking story of how she turned her family life upside down to pursue her unusual passion for rehabilitating wild birds.

Through adolescence and into adulthood, Suzie Gilbert struggled to find her calling. But when she took a job working at the animal hospital near her home in New York's Hudson Valley, her passion was born. She began bringing abused and unwanted parrots home and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center, activities she continued for the next eleven years, even as she started a family. Then came the ultimate commitment to her cause: turning her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center.

Gilbert chronicles the years of her chaotic household-cum-bird-hospital with delightful wit, recounting the confusion that ensued as her husband and two young children struggled to live in a house where parrots shrieked Motown songs, nestling robins required food every twenty minutes, and recuperating herons took over the spare bathroom. Gradually, however, the birds came to represent the value of compassion and the importance of pursuing even the most unlikely of dreams.

Often funny, sometimes painful, Gilbert's encounters with these beautiful creatures reveal profound truths not only about animals but also about our own lives—lessons of birth and death, suffering and empathy, holding on and letting go.

Original, lyrical, and highly entertaining, Flyaway will forever change the way you see this amazing member of the animal kingdom.

About the Author:

Suzie Gilbert lives in New York State's Hudson Valley, where she launched Flyaway, Inc., in 2002. She is also the author of the children's book Hawk Hill.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061563137
• ISBN 13: 9780061563133
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 340