Each Little Bird That Sings

By Deborah Wiles
Published in 2005

   When I read the back of this book and realized it was about a girl who's family owns the town funeral home I wasn't all too sure what to expect. I thought oh boy I picked a real depressing one. I was wrong though. Yes at times I found myself almost crying but It wasn't because it was all about funerals. It is about this young girl going through many transitions in her life. Losing two family members, her best friend changing, and many other things. The story is also told from her (Comfort) perspective. Which I thought really brought mood to the story and helped you relate with her character. One of my favorite parts is where she lists top ten things to do at a funeral. She also writes her own obituaries, but unfortunately they don't make it to the newspaper. Her daring adventure of finding herself really made me enjoy this book and I would definitely suggest it!
    One of the things I liked about this book is that the text changed throughout. Since she kept a journal and made a lot of newspaper articles these were distinguished throughout the text in different font and format. It made it seem like Comfort had given you the article herself. I also noticed there was a lot of personification used when talking about nature and this helped bring out the importance of this aspect in the book. This book does a good job of covering the topic of death in not such a serious tone, but it doesn't make it a joke either. For response from my students I would definitely have them do a character list. Not because there are a lot of important ones but because their names are just so darn funny. Also I think this would be an excellent book to have the class or small group do the time line activity. Where they graph the level of tension. Also a visual representation of each chapter with a bookmark would be great, just to see what parts of the story the students are finding important.