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Birdgirl: ‘Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ Margaret Atwood Hardcover – 30 Jun. 2022

4.5 out of 5 stars 44 ratings

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From the Publisher

birdwatching has never felt like a hobby but a thread running through my life. Birdgirl book image

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Review

Lyrical, poignant and insightful. -- Margaret Atwood

Mya-Rose Craig has done more than anyone to promote birding and environmental issues to young people from all backgrounds - especially women of colour - and deserves our admiration and praise. -- Stephen Moss, author of THE ROBIN

Mya-Rose's passion and dedication for the causes she believes in are testament to what we humans can achieve when we are at our best. -- Liz Bonnin, President of the Wildlife Trust

Craig manages to capture so vividly what birds mean to her and her family...
filled with...hope and energy.Guardian

[Craig's] book reads like a cross between a travel diary, an ornithologist's guide and a thriller.The Times

A frank, open account of how birdwatching provided solace during Mya-Rose's teenage years... [we are] given an insight into a fascinating family of bird-lovers.BBC Wildlife

A must read for bird lovers.Yours

From the Back Cover

Discover a powerful, evocative and urgent new young voice in nature writing.

'Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life.'

Meet Mya-Rose - otherwise known as 'Birdgirl'. Birder, environmentalist, diversity activist. To date she has seen over five thousand different types of bird: half the world's species.

Every single bird a treasure. Each sighting a small step in her family journey - a collective moment of joy and stillness. And each helping her to find her voice.

Since she was young, she has visited every continent to pursue her passion, seeing first-hand the inequality and reckless destruction we are inflicting on our fragile planet. And the simple, mindful act of looking for birds has made her ever-more determined to campaign for all our survival.

This is her story; a journey defined by her love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.

Birdgirl is the perfect read for fans of H is for Hawk, Diary of a Young Naturalist, and any young or aspiring environmentalists.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jonathan Cape; 1st edition (30 Jun. 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1787333205
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1787333208
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.5 x 3.1 x 22.4 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 44 ratings

About the author

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Dr Mya-Rose Craig D.Sc. h.c. who is also known as Birdgirl is a 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi birder, race activist and environmentalist campaigning for equal access to nature, to stop climate change and biodiversity loss and ensure Global Climate Justice, which she believes are closely inter-linked. She has been birding all her life, started training as a bird ringer under the British Trust for Ornithology's birding ringing scheme when she was only 9 years old, getting her licence at age 16, the youngest age possible. Nature and birds are her passion and she does everything she can to save nature and stop habitat loss.

She fights for the prioritisation of the human rights of indigenous peoples, being a Survival International Ambassador. Her first book, We have a Dream, was illustrated by Sabrena Khadija and published by Magic Cat Publishing. It highlights 30 young global environmentalists of colour, amplifying their voices in the Global North and was nominated for The Discover Book of the Year Category in the British Book Awards 2022 (Also known as The Nibbies).

Her memoir, Birdgirl, is published by Penguin Random House/Vintage Books, Jonathan Cape imprint. It is a book about her love of birds and how they helped her cope with her mum's mental illness.

She was 8 years old when she first visited the Amazon and discovered that wildlife and indigenous peoples around the world were being hugely impacted by deforestation and other environmental destruction, which ignited her desire to fight and make change. At age 11, she started her popular Birdgirl blog to share her passion for birds and wildlife which now has 5.5 million views. At 13 she was a Bristol Green Capital 2015 Ambassador and organised her first nature camp for minority ethnic teenagers and the following year founded Black2Nature, which focuses on engaging minority ethnic teenagers with nature and in making the environmental sector ethnically diverse.

At age 17, she became the youngest person to see half the world’s bird species, and to receive an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Bristol in recognition of her pioneering campaign work. In 2020 she shared a stage with Greta Thunberg in front of 40,000 and travelled to the Arctic with Greenpeace, taking part in the most northerly Youth Strike for Climate. In 2021 she spoke at COP26 on a panel including Emma Watson, Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. She was also on a panel at Billie Eilish’s Overheaded Live! in the O2 in June 2022.

The other causes closest to her heart are connecting everyone to nature so that they can care about fighting to avert the climate crisis. Her activism is informed by a life-long love of birds and the fight against racism. She writes articles, speaks as well as appearing on TV and media. She is at home on live TV and Radio, having been on Springwatch, Countryfile, The One Show, Saturday Live, BBC Radio Four Women's Hour and The Today Programme. She has also presented a German-French documentary, Where Have All The Birds Gone, about the decline of grassland and farmland bird species appearing with the top author Jonathan Franzen in California, the best known birder in the USA.

She has written articles including The Times, Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and Resurgence & Ecologist; given 100 talks including a panel with George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas MP age 14 and Hay Festival main stage She was a Minister in Chris Packham's People’s Manifesto for Wildlife and spoke at his People’s Walk for Wildlife and has attended a number of events and meetings at Parliament including with Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove and Sr John Randall when he was the environmental advisor to Teresa May as PM. She has also attended a roundtable discussion with Sir Kier Starmer and Ed Milliband and given evidence to Sadiq Khan, London Mayor's London Assembly on the environment.

Mya-Rose gives her time freely to causes that are important to her such as her charity, Black2Nature, which organise many nature camps and events for visible minority ethnic children, teenagers and families. As well as this, she holds position for many organisations such as Greenpeace, RSPB, The Wildlife Trust, Survival International, Froglife, Beaver Trust, Creative UK and The Sustainable Goals Centre.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
44 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 14 January 2023
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 December 2022
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5.0 out of 5 stars It's worth reading this book.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 December 2022
Why I like reading this book. It is story that Mya and rest of the family enjoy their hoildays and see nature while travelling. It is just amazing book to have.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 November 2022
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 July 2022
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 29 January 2023
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5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, poetic and beautifully illustrated.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 29 January 2023
Having just turned the last page of this book, I feel a sadness for the memoir to have ended and a sincere warmth for the author, Mya-Rose Craig, and her family. I have found her words to be engaging, poetic and powerful. The impact with which her activist voice is heard across all platforms is tangible within the book, and yet she does not come across as a preachy, or desperate campaigner. I love birds but am not a birdwatcher - though I find myself wanting to see more of the UK birds and across the world as a result.

Mya's experiences as a child, growing up through her teens, navigating a dual life to keep exteme birding and peers at arm's reach carries through the book. Isn't that all a teenager ever wants... to fit in?

The initial surfacing and progression of her mother's mental illness is poignantly retold, acting as a core thread of the story. It gives the reader an insight into the turmoil, conflict and pain Mya and her family live with. The plans, the travels, the target birds and the NEED for these, not just on a personal level for Mya, but as a family unit, is so beautifully weaved into each chapter.

The racist undercurrent which is still ever present within the school environment was shocking to read. I work in schools and while I'm not ignorant that it exists, it was tough to read the way in which school environments, language and social media act as a platform for those terrorising people of colour. I appreciated Mya's explanation of her choice to use the term VME instead of BAME and applaud her for her insistence to the CEOs and policymakers for the need to encourage more VME people, not just into the outdoors but into nature. For nature's sake and for their sake.

As a result of reading Birdgirl, I feel a connection with Mya-Rose Craig, her passion and her purpose. For a voice and memoir to be taken seriously at just twenty-years-old is unusual, however this young woman has much to offer and an extraordinary background from which to speak from experience. Birding may not have seemed cool to young Mya. I hope she now realises that she is indeed the catalyst to have made it the new cool. After all, isn't bringing the next generation into the world of birds what's needed to help the battle to protect them and their habitats? I hope so.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 16 October 2022
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 November 2022
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5.0 out of 5 stars Reading this book is like going for a refreshing, perspective-gaining walk
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 November 2022
Reading this book is like going for a refreshing, perspective-gaining walk and so welcome at a time when you can't for one reason or another. You feel fresh air in these pages, you feel like you've covered distances! It was so interesting and enjoyable... right until the last few pages when I just sobbed as Mya-Rose so beautifully brought the strands of her life together and reflected on it continuing beyond the book.

This is storytelling with a gentle and patient undercurrent that carries you away. As a non-birder, there was also enough to grab my interest in the beautiful descriptions, but not too much for it to wane. Mya-Rose has very generously shared intimate details of her family life, the reality of which juxtaposes poetically with the dream-like sequences of tracking down rare birds around the world.

There is a clear reason why the family has gone to extraordinary lengths to see birds around the world. This is an extraordinary family. I found Helena’s story so compelling: her drive, the challenges she faced and the effect on the family unit. I imagine it helps people experiencing mental illness in their family to read this book. It also appeals to a broad range of people and ages. I took away a strong message about mental health: that it is not always something you get over, but learn to live with/adapt to and need immense resilience to keep on top of, requiring the support of others. I learned that we need to make time for good times (they don't just happen) and make time for rest and reflection too.
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