SOLVED. YA Fantasy? with girl pretending to be boy and has a bird. [s]

[Bat]

Okay I read this maybe in 2012? and I really liked it, the cover might have been lighter, maybe white, with a girl dressed like a warrior on it or maybe a bird? But she was the oldest child and a girl, which means she would have been put to death but her parents hid her and raised her as a boy, mother maybe died, but im not sure if it was really fantasy or just village like living and warriors who had a bird that bonded to them. Also really weird detail to remember but at some point it talks about how she uses sea sponges or something as tampons. And she is sent away to train or something.

[Ayshe]

Firstborn maybe?

[Kris]

Ayshe's suggestion of Firstborn by Lorie Ann Grover sounds like your book.

Google Books preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=zZu...

Quotes from the book:
- "They worry about your bird. When your rapion hatches, they wonder if it will join you."
- "But we have the rapion, birds that work with us for survival."
"And the Madronians don't. And because the birds have always refused to join them, plain jealousy makes for further oppression."
- His hand moves over the hidden pouch for my flow sponge. Not that the discovery would endanger me, but it would make everything more complicated. The Madronians wouldn't want to know my body defies their amulet.

[Bat]

Oh my gosh yes! thank you guys! It has been bugging me for forever!