Gay-Neck (The Story of A Pigeon)

Gay-Neck is the heart-warming and sometimes almost heartbreaking story of the training and care of a carrier pigeon. Writing out of his own experience as a boy in India, Dhan Gopal Mukerji tells how Gay-Neck's master, an eager, highly-sensitive lad, sent his exceptional training and his brave heart, Gay-Neck served his new masters heroically. Here is more than just a simple story of a pigeon's training and adventuring, for Gay-Neck is a bearer of messages, and his messages are words of courage and love.

Dhan Gopal Mukerji is the only Indian to have won the Newbery Medal for outstanding children's literature. He was born in 1890 near Calcutta, the son of Brahmin parents whose family had for centuries had {his ministry of a temple near Calcutta. He went to America at the age of nineteen, went through the Universities of California and Stanford, married an American, and spent the rest of his life in America writing and lecturing. He took with him the lore and the religion of India, and in his books he pictures for us his own boyhood and the life he saw about him or knew through friendships. His other books include Kari the Elephant and Hari the Jungle Lad.

Few Indians would have heard the name of this truly exceptional writer-Dhan Gopal Mukerji, or ever read his outstanding book-Gay-Neck. This book won the Newbery Medal in 1928. The Newbery Medal is the most coveted award given by the American Library Association every year, for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature. In the last 75 years Mukerji has been the only Indian to receive it.

Thousands of children's books are printed in India every year. Most of them are pedantic-full of morals and sermons. They fail to capture the children's imagination. Despite the unmatched flora and fauna of our country there are very few good books for young readers on India's varied wildlife. There are some beautiful field guides on Indian birds. They are full of facts. But more than learning to spot a bird, children need the song of the bird. Gay-Neck does exactly that. In it, scientific observations are, woven into the fabric of the story, facts intermingling with fiction, to make an adorable book. That it has taken 60 years to reprint Gay-Neck, is reflective of the sorry state of children's literature in India. India's greatest naturalist writer was Edward Hamilton Aitken, or EHA as he preferred to call himself. His classics, a naturalist on the prowl and The common birds of India have been out of print for more than 50 years!

Though written primarily for children, Gay-Neck would be a field naturalist's delight. There are minute details of a pigeon's life and vivid descriptions of the Himalayan flora. It is a gripping account of a domesticated Calcutta pigeon and a young sensitive lad. The pigeon is trained to become a carrier. He is taken up into the Himalayas, where he gets lost and has many adventures. The pigeon was used as a carrier of secret messages by the Indian Army in France, during the First World War.

Dhan Gopal Mukerji (1890-1936) was born near Calcutta. He came from a family of temple priests. He landed in America at the age of nineteen, and went through the Universities of California and Stanford. He married an American and spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing in America. He wrote nine books of animal stories for children, including Kari the Elephant (1922), Hari the Jungle Lad (1929) and Ghond the Hunter (1928). He never forgot his roots and wrote about the lores and religion of India with a fine sensibility. Gay-Neck is truly a carrier pigeon, a bearer of the message of love, courage and peace for all humanity.

**Contents and Sample Pages**