Gay-Neck: the Story of a Pigeon won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1928. It deals with the life of Gay-Neck, a prized Indian pigeon. Mukerji wrote that "the message implicit in the book is that man and winged animals are brothers." He stated that much of the book is based on his boyhood experiences with a flock of forty pigeons and their leader, as the boy in the book is Mukerji himself. The book offers an insight into the life of a boy of high caste and also into the training of pigeons. Several chapters are told from Gay-Neck's perspective, with the pigeon speaking in first person.