Mukerji wrote that "the message implicit in the book is that man and winged animals are brothers.

[1] The book offers an insight into the life of a boy of high caste during the early 1900s and also into the training of pigeons.

"[2] In an article in the children's literature journal The Lion and the Unicorn, Meena G. Khorana calls the novel one of the few children's novels from Western or Indian authors to explore the Himalayas in a meaningful way (rather than simply using them as a setting), and notes the way Mukerji recalls their "grandeur and spiritual power".

His master and Ghond the hunter take him out into the wilderness, but he becomes so scared by the hawks that he flees and ends up in a lamasery where the Buddhist monks are able to cure him of his fear.

He is chased by German machine-eagles (planes) and is severely traumatized when one of his fellow messenger pigeons is shot down.