In the fields surrounding the wonderful Victorian house where her family spent the summers, June Pritchard trained her sparrow hawk, Zander. The bird was her own, a gift from her brothers who had trained their own falcons and who encouraged June to develop her bird as a hunter—not a pet; for a falcon pet is a useless creature and an embarrassment.

As she molded her bird's instincts to prepare him for his adult life, June chaffed at her mother's insistence that she assume the responsibilities of her own increasing age. June wanted freedom but she was to learn that freedom without self-discipline was worthless-and even harmful.

During those wonderful summer months, the successful training of Zander taught June the intricacies of falconry and, at the same time, broadened her knowledge of the natural world her family loved. But growing up brought other knowledge as well. A sudden tragedy and a glorious falcon hunt as a memorial to a loving friend brings home to June the reality of life and death in the scheme of nature. Her feminine role is delightfully—and almost disastrously—challenged when her parents place her in charge of housekeeping for a few days.

With humor and sensitivity, June crosses the wispy line from child to woman. As her beloved Zander reaches his maturity, she senses that he aches to be free of training, to live in the world beyond her care. And now she, at sixteen, must learn to take the steps toward the world beyond her family's guidance.

As two young creatures come of age in this unusual story, readers will recognize some of their own bewildering feelings about maturity. For, indeed, the ritual of growing up is as universal and old as nature, and as individual and new as each fledgling adult.

From the dust jacket