Homeless Bird Analysis

Whether Koly's at home in the village, traveling to Varanasi where the magical Ganges is, or setting up a new life in Vrindavan, we're always in India in this book. The vibrant setting helps set th...

Throughout Homeless Bird, we are right alongside Koly as she goes through life, learning exactly what she thinks about everyone she meets. Check out her reaction to Chandra asking her to lay a garl...

Pop quiz (don't worry—we won't be grading): What do you call the transformation a person goes through when they start out a naïve and obedient thirteen year old only to become a self-possessed a...

Consider yourselves warned, Shmoopers: The tone of Homeless Bird is super depressing and somber a lot of the time. But what did you expect? It's about a thirteen-year-old girl being forced to marry...

Reading about Koly's life is like meeting a good friend for coffee and swapping stories about your week. The writing is conversational, and makes us feel like we're being spoken to directly. If som...

Ah, Homeless Bird. Yup, we definitely found ourselves looking for feathered friends early on while reading… but we came up short. So what's up with that? Why does the title refer to birds when th...

By the end of the book, Koly gets everything she's ever wanted—and more. She doesn't believe any decent guy will ever want to come near her because she's a widow, but then she finds Raji and he d...

This is a gripping story that's written in an easy to understand style. There are no complicated plot twists or random characters, and instead we hang out with Koly pretty much the whole time, gett...

Take Me to ChurchWhen we first meet Koly, she's getting married—but there's no romance to be found. Instead, her parents decide to marry her off so they don't have another mouth to feed around th...

People came to Gloria Whelan's house searching for oil one day, and she decided to write a short story about oil riggers. With that, her career was born. (Source.) What's the deal with the Gan...

If it's some dirty dancing between the sheets you're after, keep on looking because there's nothing steamy about this book. In fact, Koly doesn't even spend her wedding night with her first husband...

Krishna (4.18, 4.31, 4.47; 9.63)Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet) (4.50; 5.19; 6.1, 6.7; 7.41, 7.59; 9.38; 11.66)