This unusual and highly entertaining book is set in New Zealand, the author’s home, giving it an exotic feel above and beyond the bizarre nature of the story. A young couple living in the high back country raising sheep come across a magpie chick fallen from the nest. The husband, a sheep farmer with the sensibilities of one who raises creatures for eventual slaughter and the attendant attitudes towards feral animals warns that if it becomes a nuisance he’ll gladly kill it is overruled by the soft-hearted wife who brings the chick home and nurtures it. As the bird grows it exhibits an astonishing ability to mimic human speech, even to repeating entire sentences heard spoken between its “parents”. Uncanny and slightly disturbing, Tama, as he is named, becomes a vivid character with quirks and talents that either delight or enrage.

Told entirely in the first person from the point of view of Tama himself, the observations on human nature and bird behavior juxtapose trust and suspicion, freedom and servitude, nature and civilization in ways that cannot fail to engage the reader’s interest. Tama becomes, by accident, an internet celebrity who garners worldwide attention and becomes a source of income for his people, allowing himself to dressed in costumes and made to participate in skits and stunts that charm and bewitch those who surf the net.

It is unclear just how much Tama understands everything in which he becomes involved, but he is far from unconscious of his impact and his place in the strange world he inhabits. He seems to actually understand most of the speech he spouts and he certainly knows about freedom and capture. He longs for the comradeship and family comfort of his avian community while simultaneously enjoying his unique life with humans, even as far as loving his “mom” and being suspicious of the repeatedly violent nature of her husband.

An entertainment and an enlightenment musing on the relationship between humans and animals, our propensity for overthinking and overworking everything to its absurdity and a meditation upon the nature of liberty and servitude, this unique tale should be read by anyone who questions the wisdom of “benevolent capture” of wild animals.