About
Plot Summary
The Apollo bird feeder, hanging in a suburban backyard, is a reliable food source to many birds and a few squirrels. Some of these birds have been feeding there their whole lives. When the residents go on vacation for the first time in many years, the food suddenly stops. The birds have no way of knowing if it is ever coming back. It is spring, and the sparrow mothers, Billie and Bessie, are faced with having to feed their young, while raptors threaten overhead. A pair of Cardinals, Duke and Ella, decide to move to the woods. A sad Mourning Dove becomes curious about humans. An ornery Blue Jay keeps tabs on the sparrows. A pair of Eastern Gray squirrels are faced with more than just hoarding food. As the scarcity of food makes the animals more and more desperate, their stories intertwine, in this lively and sometimes violent allegory.
The birds' names and songs pay homage to some key jazz and blues musicians during and after the Harlem Renaissance. Like these musicians, the birds struggle to survive in a hostile world, armed with nothing but a song.