She Treads Softly: The Language of the Birds

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

The Language of the Birds

The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson
5/13/25; 368 pages
Random House/Ballantine

The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson is a highly recommended mystery featuring an intelligent neurodivergent teen who excels at solving codes and ciphers.

After her father's death, seventeen-year-old Arizona, her mother, and her dog Mojo are traveling in their Airstream trailer to scatter his ashes in some of his favorite places. In California’s Bodie State Historic Park she and her mother go their separate ways and agree to meet at 4:00. When her mother doesn't show up, after giving her more time, she talks to Stephen Gordon, a park ranger, to report her mother is missing.

Later, back at the Airstream she finds it has been searched and a note “Your father should have provided us with the information that we seek. His death could have been avoided. Now we have your mother.” Included is a lengthy list of random letters that she is told to decode. She discovers Stephen Gordon is not a park ranger. He has kidnapped her mom and now he wants her to search for the clues to uncover a secret her dad, a cartographer for the U.S. Geological Survey, was guarding.

Arizona is not your average teenager. She loves cryptography, solving puzzles and cracking codes. Once the task placed before her is solved, the kidnappers give her more codes to solve and clues to find. With Mojo at her side, Arizona tackles each mystery and task placed before her. She also makes a friend, Lily, which is a huge accomplishment.

It reads like a YA novel, but adult readers can also appreciate the clues Arizona must solve while trying to save her mom. Adult readers will have to set disbelief aside several times as the plot develops, but it is entertaining and well-written. Along with solving the codes, the plot involves literature, alchemy, history, and geography.

It surprised me how much I enjoyed many aspects of this novel, especially the history and literature incorporated into the plot. The solution to solving the codes is explained in the book (Those who aren't interested can skim.) There are illustrations included in the story to assist readers in following the mystery and the solution/answer Arizona finds along the way. The ending was great. I could see this becoming a series with Arizona breaking codes and solving mysteries.

The Language of the Birds will be best appreciated by those who love solving codes and ciphers as part of a greater mystery. Thanks to Random House/Ballantine for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.