Gay-Neck the Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji is literarily a story of a pigeon but much more captivating than a normal realistic fiction book. What makes this story different from other animal stories is that it's so amazingly told that you can't put it down. This story is about a boy in a high caste (Indian social classes) and a beautiful pigeon. At first, it talks about Gay-Neck's birth and training less thrillingly, but when you get to Gay-Neck's first experience against a hawk, you'll want to know what happens next. Soon you experience the battle field tension as Gay-Neck goes to war as a carrier pigeon for the first time. You can almost actually feel Gay-Neck's experience when he was shot and then healed by the lamas (the lamas are Buddhist monks in India). Dhan Mukerji's describes this story in such a great way. Imagine the distress to find out Gay-Neck's dad had perished in a rain storm after all Gay-Neck and his dad has gone through: pain, frustration, stress, and joy. For a few days Gay-Neck and his mother only sat on the tall roof top looking up at the sky through rain, sand, and wind storms waiting and hoping for a miracle that wouldn't come. Read this extraordinary novel. You'll love it. Being a bird lover, I really enjoyed the story. There was adventure, some excitement, and wonderful insights on bird and animal behavior. The author uses English in such an artistic manner that you'd think it was for young adults. He gives a wonderful descriptive story of the war life because he was a boy in India, something you don't get from history books. Sometimes I didn't really like it because it wasn't suspenseful enough and the chapters were too long. But other wise it's a great book!