The Birds on the Trees is a novel by Nina Bawden first published in 1970 about a middle-class English family whose 19-year-old son does not live up to his parents' expectations. The Birds on the Trees was announced, on 26 March 2010, as one of six books that had been shortlisted for the "Lost Man Booker Prize" of 1970, "a contest delayed by 40 years because a reshuffling of the fledgeling competition’s rules that year disqualified nearly a year’s worth of high-quality fiction from consideration". Source: Wikipedia (en)