Shortly after Kathryn Scheibel leaves her cigar-making job in 1917, she enters the Army School of Nursing, a pioneering WWI nurse-training program that offers the education she's longed for but couldn't afford. More than two decades later, her career carries her, as an instructor, into the Cadet Nurse Corps, the federal WWII nursing-education initiative created to support the war effort. There she sees the same pressures she once felt now directed at students with even fewer protections. When two Black students are treated unfairly, Kathryn must decide how to respond.
Sparrow's Song is a sweeping, intimate novel about resilience and belonging, rooted in the real history of wartime federal nursing education and the evolving landscape of modern American nursing. At its heart is a young immigrant woman pushing herself toward the advantages she's convinced education will unlock, even as that drive pulls her away from the people and heritage she loves.