1928: Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon

It is generally difficult to explain to others my motivation for reading all the Newbery Medal winners. It is especially difficult to explain it to a 5th grader who is eyeballing you from across the room and can't for the life of him understand why anyone would spend time reading a 100 year old story about a pigeon, when they could be reading Rick Rjordan's latest adventure novel!

In GAY-NECK: THE STORY OF A PIGEON, a baby pigeon (Gay-Neck) is born on a rooftop in India to a young boy. Gay-Neck's mother and father teach him to fly but soon, both die and Gay-Neck is hurried off to the Himalayan Mountains with his master (author Dhan Gopal Mukerji as a boy) and Ghond, a hunter. In the mountains, Gay-Neck faces many of his fears and eventually trains as a carrier pigeon to be used by Ghond in World War I. Gay-Neck and Ghond are both sickened by the death and carnage they witness in the war and in nature and reflect on the meaning of it all.

Kids love animal stories, especially when the animals can talk and are placed in interesting situations. On the surface, GAY-NECK checks off those boxes! Maybe kids in the 1920's saw those characteristics in this title and appreciated it like the Newbery Medal committee apparently did. I can tell that author Dhan Gopal Mukerji has put more thought into his presentation for a child audience than let's say, Will James did with the previous year's winner SMOKY THE COWHORSE, but that's not saying much...

GAY-NECK: THE STORY OF A PIGEON felt like an old house with good bones, but in desperate need of a remodel and fixing up. There are components of the story that I can appreciate, but in the end, the age of the language and the clunky pacing of the plot bored me.

So what is there to appreciate in GAY-NECK? Dhan Gopal Mukerji treats his subjects (Gay-Neck the pigeon, and the Himalayan Mountains) with tenderness and care, again, similar to the way that Will James treated Smoky the horse. Mukerji is very descriptive in his detailing of Gay-Neck's travels and the natural beauty of the Himalayas. The fact that he gives Gay-Neck a voice in some chapters, allowing him to tell his own story, is also evident of this. I appreciated how this was done in a realistic way, instead of an anthropomorphic way. Gay-Neck doesn't "speak" to Ghond or Mukerji in the text, instead we get a peek inside Gay-Neck's head for certain parts of the story where Gay-Neck wanders off and the two humans aren't present.

I was semi-interested in the idea of carrier pigeons, too. I thought this was an intriguing topic for a children's novel. The idea of carrier pigeons helping in WWI is kind of fascinating because it seems somewhat archaic. A quick Wikipedia search however, provides you with tons of information that supports Mukerji's story. The scenes of Gay-Neck training for the war were somewhat humorous, in a Top Gun for pigeons kind of way. There was also some humor in "The Mating of Gay-Neck" chapter, in which Gay-Neck comes out of his wartime funk by getting romantic with another pigeon!

For the most part though, GAY-NECK was a bore. I had a very difficult time understanding what was happening. The long paragraphs and rambling narrative were mostly to blame for this (look for a paragraph break in the photo... you won't find one!). Furthermore, there were issues of consistency with Gay-Neck's voice that I don't think would have made it past Newbery discussions today. For instance, in one scene, Mukerji works hard to make Gay-Neck sound like a pigeon, unaware of what he is witnessing in the war. He refers to airplanes as "metal eagles" that "spit fireballs" yet later, he refers to them as "aeroplanes with sharpshooters." The naivety of Gay-Neck's animal voice did not always ring genuine.

Mukerji's heart is in the right place in GAY-NECK, whether I enjoyed the story or not. There are some relevant themes present throughout about the costs of war and the violence we inflict on each other. Above all, Mukerji wants readers to stop and reflect on the beauty of the world that is preset all around them in nature. I can certainly appreciate that.