It is about the life journey of a young girl called Koly who lives in a small village in India and gets married at the age of 13. Having said that, Homeless Bird has a beautiful story. So to some extent, the book portrays a slightly wrong impression of India. Well, let me tell you that in contemporary India, girls don't get married at 13, and are not left to fend for themselves in a "City of Widows." In today's world, child marriage in India is as rare as foot binding in China or witch hunting in Salem. Whelan herself admitted in an interview that she got the idea for this book after reading a story on child widows and seeing an exhibit on Asian embroidery in America. But many of the customs she talks about appear fake and outdated. (Mar.Whelan deals with the delicate issue of child widows in India and how they are abandoned to live a life of poverty and loneliness – and she handles it with sensitivity. The feminist theme that dominates the happily-ever-after ending seems more American than Indian, but kids will likely enjoy this dramatic view of an endangered adolescence and cheer Koly's hard-won victories. She is saved from a dismal fate by her love of beauty, her talent for embroidery and the philanthropy of others-and by Whelan's tidy plotting, which introduces a virtuous young man, a savvy benefactress and a just employer in the nick of time. Koly, likened to a ""homeless bird"" in a famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore, embodies the tragic plight of Hindu women without status, family or financial security.
Koly is widowed almost immediately later, she is abandoned in the holy city of Vrindavan by her cruel mother-in-law. The truth is worse than she could have feared: the groom, Hari, is a sickly child, and his parents have wanted only a dowry, not a wife for him, in order to pay for a trip to Benares so Hari might bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges. Only 13 when her parents find her a husband, Koly can't help feeling apprehensive about leaving home to live in a distant village with her in-laws and husband, none of whom she has met. Whelan (Miranda's Last Stand) blends modern Hindu culture with age-old Indian traditions as she profiles a poor girl's struggle to survive in a male-dominated society.
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