TLDR: I put a lot of “easter eggs” symbolism in the book, which, when understood, might add more depth.
Main Character: Sam Wilson – is the Real name of Uncle Sam (US patriot)
Nancy and Kevin in the house – a play on the US House of Representatives
Bobby – (Nancy and Kevin’s cherished one) – could be RFK?
Alpha Bird (Old Grumpy) – an oversized, out of his league bossy type. (you can guess who)
Jerry Manderson – (Child) – a reference to gerrymandering.
The giant birds- A symbol of climate change coming in the form of a monster.
Climate change:  An issue we all need to get behind, including authors of all types.

   I wrote a lot of this while recent turmoil in the US House of Representatives was going on.  So I decided to have some fun with the people and names.  Sam Wilson is Nancy’s sister. So, to Nancy’s children, Sam would be called Uncle Sam.  Uncle Sam hated Kevin because he was only trying to serve himself, and not seeing the bigger picture.

    Meanwhile, the US and Canada had recently experienced a lot of wildfires. The smoke became really intrusive where I live, and it was a palpable result of climate change affecting our environment.  There have been calls for writers to incorporate climate change topics in their writing to add to the voices that need to be shared and discussed.  I decided to incorporate climate change and the characters into the story. It’s an important topic and needs to be kept front of mind wherever possible.

   The notion of the birds themselves came from a lot of sources. Foremost, they are about climate change.  If climate change were a monster that came and destroyed our world like a Michael Bay movie, we would be coming together to defeat a common enemy.  Alas, it is  coming for us just the same, but in a much more subtle form. This makes it challengeable by people who stand to lose money in the old economy.

   There is also precedent for using animals from long ago in storytelling.  When western civilization was exploring the arctic during the gold rush, there were stories published in newspapers both by explorers and natives about strangely tropical lands and wild beasts like Mammoths  and Big Foot beasts. There is a book called “Strange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon” by Ed Ferrell that references these stories. I chose to bring in a bird because of their lineage to dinosaurs, and I needed an animal more transportable than a mammoth.

   I hope this gives a little more color to the story. I know the background made it even more fun to write.

Jeff