Birdbrain by Kelli Anne Hawkins

Title: Birdbrain

Author: Kelli Anne Hawkins

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 7^th September 2022

Format: Paperback

Pages: 304

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: The funny, whimsical and quirky new adventure from Australian rising star Kelli Anne Hawkins.

When seven strangers arrive at a small Australian caravan park to tell Hadley Boggs that her dad is the long-lost heir to the kingdom of Ludrovia, she can hardly believe it.

Her dad — the world’s most indecisive man, a man who takes the advice of their pet budgie, a man named BARRY — is king?!

Soon, Hadley jets off to an exciting new life, where she meets dancing goats, learns of an ancient Ludrovian prophecy and comes face to face with the country’s hair-obsessed president.

Hadley quickly falls in love with her quirky adopted home, so when she and her new friends discover the president’s secret deal to sell the country to a cheese-loving billionaire, she knows they must act.

But can the Birdbrain prophecy help them save Ludrovia before everything turns to fondue?

~*~

Hadley and her father, Barry, live in a caravan park in a coastal town in New South Wales. Barry is starting another odd money-making scheme when seven strangers show up to whisk Hadley and her father away to the small European nation of Ludrovia amidst the news that the entire royal family has died – Barry’s mother, his six brothers and sisters, and all their kids. Hadley is astounded because her father cannot make a decision without input from their pet budgie! So when a nefarious plan to sell Ludrovia is uncovered, it will be up to Hadley and her new friends to stop the sale and save their home.

What a delightful story! It’s filled with fun, mystery, intrigue, ad goats – dancing goats – as the national animal of the fictional nation of Ludrovia. Ludrovia is a unique country, with strange sayings, and odd obsessions with cheese and goats, but it’s such a charming and delightful country as well. This arrived on my doorstep recently, and I dove into it almost immediately – I love the way Kelli embraces animals as key characters and allows them to become huge parts of the story. Her books are fun and whimsical but always have a mysterious twist that her characters – human and animal – need to solve or fix, and Birdbrain is no exception.

I loved how Australian this book was too – even the Ludrovians used Australian expressions and it was utterly delightful to see how this was embraced and explored in the novel. It felt like I was both at home in Australia and in a new, fantastic place. It also felt like a modern-day princess story – with a few clever twists throughout, with subtle clues dropped, so I suspected something was going on but wasn’t completely sure until the final few chapters, where several revelations brought things to life and gave the story exactly what it needed. Throughout there was a sense of vitality and whimsy – where we came to understand what the prophecy was, and that terms that might mean one thing in Australia had a completely different meaning in Ludrovia. The way this was explored was done well too.

It’s really great to see disabled characters in books – Lark was shown as being able to do things, being able to be herself, and having great friends who accepted her and fought for her when the sneaky changes threatened her life. I loved this aspect, and the way the friends worked together to save their home. The American billionaire was such a great villain – his desire to destroy Ludrovia and make it gaudy and American made him someone who you wanted to fail, because the beauty of Ludrovia is in its uniqueness. In Goat Day, and the dancing goats, and everything that Ludrovia was when Hadley arrived before the nefarious plot was revealed.

This delightful book is everything I love – it has something for everyone, and I think a wide array of readers will enjoy it as well, as it is light-hearted with a great plot, very joyful and has characters that we can fall in love with and relate to in many ways, and also dream of being whisked away to an unknown country because we’re the prince or princess of that country. It’s a fun book, and I hope it finds lots of fans.