Birds Symbol Analysis

To the children taken away from their families and forced to live at the residential school, the birds that live in the bush—kookaburras (Janey’s favorites), mudlarks (Tim’s favorites), and magpies—symbolize the children’s stolen freedom. The birds are free to come and go as they please, and they provide a point of connection between the children and their lost families. At the end of the book, Annie imagines herself and Tim flying home to their families. At another point, listening to the laughing cry of the kookaburras inspires Janey and Tim to give Annie a “laughing stone,” as a marker of their beginning friendship—and an important reminder that the authorities may imprison their bodies but cannot so easily imprison their souls. In a similar vein, watching a kookaburra fly past in the days after Janey’s death and burial, Annie and Tim imagine that it represents her spirit, finally released from the school and winging its way home.