Customer Reviews

Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites

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I was assigned to read this book for a class. Over the years I have read many books for classes and for presentations. This book, while inspired, takes a certain reader to appreciate. This book has a specific audience in mind. If you fall into that audience of bird watchers and naturalists, you will truly find a wonderful book. However, if you are only slightly interested in the natural wildlife of Florida, this book may keep you from opening another for a long time.

The book, 'Tracking Desire: A Journey After Swallow-tailed Kites', is a wonderful story of coming to awareness both of the natural world and its beauty as well as a personal journey of awakening to the world around us.

The author, Susan Cerulean, has a wonderful way with words - she is very imaginative in her descriptions. For example, she describes the kites, the bird in primary focus here, as 'living origami' and 'exotic black-and-white blossoms', and describes their flight in mesmerizing language. She writes about her growing awareness of the habits and patterns of the swallow-tailed kites, a bird that was once far more prominent than it is today. This draws her into a community of bird-watchers and scientists who, in the midst of their lives otherwise, come together in slowly widening circles to follow the progress of the kites.

Cerulean also brings much of her own experience with life into the book. She describes her relationships with her husband, her son, and other birders, such as biologist Ken Meyer. She describes experiences growing up, going to college, and moving about, eventually ending up in Florida. One memorable scene involves her grandfather and his battle with the garden in Florida, and the grapefruit tree in particular. It shows the difference of perspectives, as Cerulean writes that once it was cut down (after a long period of battle with the branches), 'the only plant that had really interested me in his manicured lawn was gone.' This echoes the slow decline of habitat of the kites over the decades, and the way life itself can slowly ebb away in unexpectedly depressing ways.

This isn't a story about loss, however, but rather one of discovery, perhaps even revelation. The parallels that are drawn between the lives of the birds and the lives of the humans in Cerulean's story are very interesting; the divergences also prove to be fascinating. One such is the search for stories about the kites - such dramatic creatures warrant dramatic stories, but the search was initially fruitless. Eventually, by expanding her horizons, Cerulean would come to discover a remarkable collection of tales and mytho-poetic images involving the impressive kites.

This is a beautifully crafted narrative, flying gracefully from highlight to highlight, and engaging the readers to want to learn more about the kites and themselves.