Suzie Gilbert once struggled to find her calling. But when she took a job working at the animal hospital near her home in New York’s Hudson Valley, her passion was born. She began bringing abused and unwanted parrots home and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center. Then came the ultimate commitment to her cause: turning her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center.

Gilbert chronicles the years of her chaotic household-cum-bird-hospital with delightful wit, recounting the confusion that ensued as her husband and two young children struggled to live in a house where parrots shrieked Motown songs, nestling robins required food every 20 minutes, and recuperating herons took over the spare bathroom.

Often funny, sometimes painful, Gilbert’s encounters with these beautiful creatures reveal profound truths not only about animals but also about our own lives-lessons of birth and death, suffering and empathy, holding on and letting go.