Silhouette of a Sparrow

In the 1920s, Garnet Richardson is expected to finish school, marry and accept the respectable life her mother has planned. Her fascination with birds suggests a wider world than that future allows. A summer with relatives in Excelsior, Minnesota, offers new surroundings without much additional freedom, until the town’s amusement park and dance hall draw her attention. There she meets Isabella, a flapper whose confidence and independence unsettle Garnet’s assumptions about what a girl can want. Molly Beth Griffin’s historical YA novel follows an attraction that becomes part of a larger awakening, as Garnet weighs family expectations against curiosity, ambition and a life of her own choosing.