Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles is a trilogy of young adult fantasy novels written by Canadian playwright and screenwriter Clem Martini. All of the main characters are crows, which are not so much anthropomorphic as simply animals of human intelligence who have their own culture, religion, and folktales based on Native American mythology. While the novels take place in the "real world," elements such as the quest-like structure of the plot and the existence of a prophetic crow guided by "the Maker" lie somewhere between the realm of reality, fantasy, and the supernatural. The trilogy is written in the first person minor point of view, with the first book from the point of view of Kalum, and the second and third from the point of view of Katakata.
The trilogy was optioned early on by the entertainment company Nelvana, which is known for its children's animation. The first volume, The Mob, was published in 2004 with The Plague following in 2005 and The Judgment in 2006. The trilogy's themes contain similarities to a lesser known novel, The Crow Chronicles, by Indian author and birdwatcher Ranjit Lal, which was published in paperback format by Penguin Publications in 1996.
Inspiration Inspiration to begin writing the trilogy Clem Martini became interested in writing about crows when he saw a large number of the birds cawing, seemingly to each other, while waiting for his daughter's school bus to come. He also thought about the poor public image of crows, and how smart and helpful they really are. He wanted people to be aware of how great these birds really were, so he wanted to write them that way. When deciding that the novel would be written for preteens, Martini says that he wrote it with his daughters in mind. Despite being a playwright, Martini never saw himself being a novelist until he got the inspiration for The Mob.
Inspiration for certain elements in the trilogy Martini says that the reason that almost all of the crows' names start with K (with the exception of Erkala) was because of the "Kaw" sound that crows make. Martini had a "rough idea" that when he wrote The Mob it would become a trilogy, and had a general outline of what would happen that he later got rid of because in the second book, "there were a number of crows who suddenly started talking... and I didn't know who they were. ... So I made room for them."
Plot summaries The Mob (Book One)
The six crow clans of the Kinaar family are travelling to the Gathering Tree for the week-long celebration of Gathering where they recall their history, rejoice, rest, find a mate, remember members of the flock that have died, and select their "Chooser", or leader.
At one of these Gatherings, a malicious cat known as the Red kills a nestling, and Kyp ru Kurea ru Kinaar, an impulsive young crow, organizes a "mob", or a brutal and swift attack of multiple crows, to kill Red. However, Kyp is charged with several transgressions, the most serious among them being bringing danger to the flock. The Chooser, Kalum ru Kurea ru Kinaar, decides that instead of banishing Kyp that the young crow will be evicted for the remaining days of the Gathering and will have to fly back to his clan alone.
Kyp chooses a quiet little tree area about a mile away to spend his time. While Kyp is evicted, one crow around his age by the name of Kym breaks the rules by visiting him frequently to talk with him. In addition to Kym, Kyp meets Kuper, a large and quiet outsider whose entire nest family has died; because of this, he does not consort much with the Kinaar crows. Kyp and Kym spot humans, and Kym shows Kyp that she can speak a couple words of the human tongue that the humans repeat back to her.
Soon after Kyp's eviction the temperature drops and the rains turn to snow, creating a blizzard that threatens all of the crows of the Kinaar. In addition, Kyp finds that there is an underground shelter near where he's chosen to spend his eviction that would be perfect for hiding, though it breaks all the crow rules. Kyp, not wanting to leave the Family to fend for themselves, breaks the rules of his eviction by coming back to the Gathering Tree to lead crows into the cavern. Some of them know it is their only hope for survival and follow him underground, while others refuse to disobey rules and stay aboveground to die.
While underground, the crows believe that they are safe only to find that the Red knew other cats. These cats were in the cavern and, seeing the crows so calm, took this as an opportunity to attack. The crows manage to kill the cats, but not without many of their own fatalities, including Kuper.
The Plague (Book Two)
While on an excursion with Kalum, Kyp and Kym prepare themselves for the next gathering of the flock, hoping that one of them will be chosen to succeed Kalum as the next Chooser, so that they can change those ancient traditions which have become harmful. However, a plague suddenly breaks loose, and both Kym and Kalum contract it. Kym is taken away by scientists wanting to study her, whilst Kalum is killed by a vengeful, crazed Kuper, angry that nobody attempted to rescue him or find out if he was really dead. He also believes that Kym, of whom he had feelings for, died of the plague. He tries to kill Kyp, believing it to be Kyp's fault and that Kyp did not try to rescue him because he wanted Kym for himself. Kyp tries to tell Kuper that Kym has actually been taken away by the humans. Kuper, who was himself taken away by the humans after his battle with the cats, does not believe Kyp due to his maddened state.
Kyp escapes, injured, and spends a month recuperating in a burrow, despite the laws against it. He then meets Katakata when they fight over a fish. Katakata is a crow who was banished from his clan due because the new leadership enforced new religious laws which Katakata did not believe in. When Katakata learns that Kyp is headed looking for a female crow (Kym) who can speak with humans, he tells Kyp that he heard a rumor about such a crow from the east. Katakata joins Kyp in his journey, feeling that perhaps the Maker has brought them together for a reason.
Kyp remains reclusive and determined, occasionally straining his new friendship with Katakata. They are soon joined by a group of three crows: the talkative Kyf, her quiet brother Kaf, and her other brother Kwaku, a small crow who was banished from his flock due to his prophetic visions. Katakata takes a disliking to this group, but Kyp thinks that they are perhaps another gift from the Maker. Kwaku's visions appear to be helpful, but Katakata is still skeptical. When Katakata eats some poisoned meat left out by the humans, a strange crow named Erkala who tests Katakata. Luckily, Katakata tests true, and is given the remedy. Erkala takes them to her rocky shoreline home, Where she tells them of how her mother died after they were driven out to sea in a storm and she made her own way in the world, even moving in with a family of rats. Erkala asks to join them.
The group then journeys on and meets up with a much larger flock of young crows in need of guidance. Kyp manages to guide nearly all of them to safety when they are attacked by humans with guns, thanks to one of Kwaku's cryptic visions. However, they then only narrowly escape once more when they are confronted by Kuper, now the Chooser for an enormous flock of disciples who believe his words of hatred towards the humans and follow him into the human cities to scavenge, believing that the Maker wants them to survive because they are the greatest of all creatures, and also wants them to change much of their old ways.
They then journey to a large human city (New York City, although the crow's do not recognize it by that name). After living in Central Park for weeks, they finally find Kym in a building caged up with many other birds. The humans are taking their blood, and Kym suspects it has something to do with fighting the plague. Despite her interest in the humans, Kym wants to be freed. Erkala enlists the aid of the rats, despite the laws forbidding crows to go underground. "The Maker's tests are never easy," she explains. Together, Kyp, Kwaku, Erkala, and Katakata journey up into the building to free Kym and the other birds. However, the building catches on fire at that moment. Kwaku manages to guide nearly everybody to freedom and safety, but he himself is engulfed by the flames and perishes. Katakata later has a dream in which he is seated in a tree with Kwaku, and Kwaku gives him and Kyp some final guidance before his spirit departs forever. When he recovers from the ordeal inside the burning building, Kyp leads the flock away from the human city in search of a land where they can live in peace and safety.
The Judgment (Book Three)
The beginning of the third book starts out just a small while after the end of the second book. All of the non-crows released from human confinement have left with the exception of a single magpie, and those that are crows have joined Kyp's flock. They travel together without much difficulty for a while, although there is one crow named Kryk who eats little, nests away from the rest of the flock, and flies at the end. The magpie finds her roost and, before she leaves, tells the flock, in crow, that the Collection has doubled in size since they last saw the flock of crows.
One night when they are resting, an owl comes along. Kyp tells them to stick close to the tree, but some of them fly out and are attacked by the owl. Among those is Kaf, leaving Kyf the only living member of her family. When flying away along the coast, they become hungry because there is little they can eat. They find a loading dock with tons of fish, and Kryk creates the sound of a police siren. The humans run away distracted and the crows gather to eat fish. Katakata finds that a human dropped one of their rings and wears it like a necklace. Although it slows him down and occasionally chokes him when he perches, he does not drop it.
When the Collection comes looking for them, Kyp's flock realizes that the magpie was right, and now there are a hundred thousand crows in the Collection. They manage to avoid him by leading the Collection away from the majority of crows, but Kyp decides that they need to fly more carefully now, so they will follow cars at night to make sure that they cannot be seen by anybody else. While they are doing this nocturnal behavior, when they come to perch during the day they find that there is an elderly crow by the name of Kuru who was trapped under a branch. He had just fought off three of the Collection and was almost dead. Since he was an elder and therefore of the highest respect and knowledge, Kyp invited him to fly with them. However, once flying with them he took to angering the crows by telling them that they are useless and taking over Kyp's control as Chooser. Right before they are about to get rid of Kuru, Kyp decides that they cannot keep running from the Collection; they will need to band together more crows and fight back. Kuru says that the Urkana, a massive band of a million crows, is real and that he visited them once, so he leads them to the Urkana.