Flyaway

September 19, 2011
In her first middle-grade novel, Christopher (Stolen) offers a story ribboned with metaphors involving themes of trauma, freedom, and hope. Isla and her father share a special relationship with the swans that migrate to a nearby lake each winter, until he is hospitalized with a heart condition. Isla’s best friend has also moved away, and she feels isolated until meeting Harry, an optimistic and imaginative leukemia patient undergoing chemo treatments at the hospital and awaiting a bone marrow transplant. After Isla discovers a lost swan that has been separated from its flock, she makes it her mission to renew hope in Harry, her father, and herself by teaching the swan to fly, using a da Vinci–inspired flying machine that she creates with help from her estranged grandfather. Readers who share Isla’s love of nature and penchant for introspection will easily gravitate to her; her determination and pithy observations make for a strong, sensitive portrait of a girl trying to make sense of difficult changes in her life, while learning to draw strength from those around her. Ages 10–14.

September 15, 2011

When newly constructed power lines ruin the annual return of the whooping swans Isla and her father rise early to witness, the death of several of the wild creatures and her father's sudden and severe illness both confound Isla and emphasize her loneliness.

At the hospital where her father awaits a heart operation, Harry, waiting there for a bone-marrow transplant, befriends Isla and points out the young swan he can see from his bed. At the nearby lake the swan, apparently abandoned in its flock's confusion and panic in the encounter with power lines, seems to imprint on Isla, imitating her, touching her with its beak and wings, gazing into her eyes. The first-person, present-tense narrative works to lend immediacy to Isla's fear and isolation and to make believable what might otherwise seem mere fantasy. Harry's lightheartedness adds buoyancy to the narrative, while images of flight and wings emphasize both the frightening and the hopeful. News broadcasts at the edge of Isla's notice about deadly outbreaks of bird flu contrast with the small unfolding of Isla's widowed grandfather's stiff grief as he helps her construct an art project—a harness and wings from an ancient stuffed swan—and innocent romance flutters between Isla and Harry even as the young swan regains flight and her father begins to recover.

Emotionally affecting and remarkably convincing. (Fiction. 10-14)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from December 1, 2011

Gr 5-8-Thirteen-year-old Isla and her father have long been fans of the wild swans that migrate through the nearby preserve, but environmental changes and birds flying into wires without warning markers are diminishing their numbers. After her dad has a heart attack, Isla, her brother, and her mum spend time at the hospital, where she finds a friend in Harry, a patient her age in the cancer ward. The two spot a lone swan and work together to try to help it. Details about daily life, soccer, school assignments, and family pressures are folded into the bigger traumas of life and death in this portrait of a girl growing into her own opinions and figuring out what matters most to her. Isla's art project, inspired by da Vinci's flying model sketches, becomes a mission to create wings for a flying machine, a project that helps her connect to her special swan, Harry, and an estranged grandfather. Beautiful writing with lyrical moments and mystical descriptions of nature creates a story that is rich and compelling with plenty of action to balance out the many reflective moments. Isla and Harry are experiencing first love while confronting the real possibility of death. The result is a rewarding and superb celebration of life-Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library, CO

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2011
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Like her father and grandfather, 13-year-old Isla seems to have a mystical connection, as well as emotional bond, with the swans that migrate to their area each winter. But after her dad collapses during a birding expedition, Isla's focus abruptly shifts from the nature preserve to the hospital's coronary care unit. Though worried about her father, she finds solace in her deepening friendship with Harry, a boy who has leukemia; in her bond with a lone whooper swan nearby; and in an unusual school project that takes on a life of its own. Christopher, who wrote the Printz Honor Book Stolen (2010), offers younger readers a quiet but compelling story with several well-realized, idiosyncratic characters. She skillfully develops the novel's varied elements and weaves them into a unified narrative that occasionally falls into a predictable pattern only to surprise the reader once again. As narrator, Isla conveys with equal sensitivity her discomfort in the initially alien hospital environment, her growing understanding of family history, and her realizations about herself and those she loves. Though written for a slightly older audience, this sensitive novel will resonate with many readers who enjoyed Gill Lewis' Wild Wings (2011).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)