Flying Lessons

Susannah D. Ketchum, a former teacher-librarian at the Bishop Strachan
School in Toronto, serves on the Southern Ontario Library Services
Board.

Jessie Dearborn-James, heroine of Tree Fever (1997), coming home to her
beloved Muskoka after foot surgery, learns that her partner, Harley, has
accepted temporary responsibility for a friend’s bird refuge. A
well-meaning bird lover brings an abandoned baby loon to the refuge.
Despite warnings that the task is practically impossible, Jessie
attempts to raise the loon who soon earns the name of Sushi because of
his insatiable appetite for live minnows. Then Alex, a high-powered
Toronto financial advisor who had shared Jessie’s hospital room,
arrives after collapsing from stress. Life becomes even more complicated
when a developer decides to build a golf course on the shores of the
lake where Jessie and Harley live. Not only does the golf course
threaten a nearby bird sanctuary, it threatens a whole way of life for
Jessie and Harley—the developer plans to evict them. An ecological
battle heats up, and Jessie is accused of vandalism. Finally, driven to
distraction by the developer’s son, who circles the lake endlessly on
his noisy jet-ski, Jessie finds herself wondering whether nonviolent
protest is sufficient.

Hood-Caddy builds suspense skilfully, and readers who deplore the
relentless destruction of wilderness by “civilization” will
sympathize with Jessie’s struggle to protect a vanishing treasure. As
well, Sushi, the abandoned loon, brings together many of the disparate
characters and plot elements. However, characterization is often weak
and, although Hood-Caddy is too canny to tie up all the loose threads,
the book’s ending is too pat.