Yay! My first children’s book! And I really had a good time reading it. A friend of mine is meeting with her reading group this week to discuss The Girl Who Could Fly. I can’t join her group, but here are my thoughts (this post is probably just for people who have read the book):

The age-group for this book is 9-12, but some of the lessons in it are also applicable to older kids and adults. For example, one of the characters (Millie Mae) is the town gossip, and she is dangerous – gossip can destroy someone’s self esteem, and can mess up their lives. She makes up lies about people when she doesn’t have anything else to say about them, and we also learn that she is a complete hypocrite. Hypocrisy is a recurring theme, as good, churchgoing people are cruel to anyone who is perceived as different, and consider it evil and sinful for the little girl to fly just because they cannot do it themselves. The picnic scene where Piper tries to catch the ball is, of course, the most obvious example of this – the kids do not want anything to do with her and won’t give her the benefit of the doubt because their opinions have been poisoned by Millia Mae.

The people in Piper’s town want everyone to be ordinary (which is the only reason Piper’s parents are able to give her up to the school so quickly). They don’t trust anything that doesn’t seem natural. At the same time, they do not stop to think about who decides what is natural or right. When Piper realizes that the cow is mourning the death of her baby, and that cows must have feelings just like humans do, she makes her father think and she makes her mother uncomfortable. It takes an exceptional person to recognize when something “isn’t right” even though it’s the way “it’s always been done” because most of us just accept things as we are taught.

“My ma told me that there isn’t anything in this life worth having that comes easy. She told me that every road I want down’s gonna have a price. But what she didn’t tell me and what I learn since I’ve been here is that if you don’t choose the road you’re gonna walk, sooner or later someone else’ll do that choosing for you.” – Piper McCloud (pp. 208-209)

This is important for all of us – success takes hard work, and sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to achieve our goals. I think it’s important for children to learn to prioritize, and to work with their parents to make important decisions instead of the parents deciding everything. I used to hide behind my mom sometimes, using her as an excuse for a decision I made instead of “owning” it myself. Barbara Coloroso suggests that parents give their children this “out” so that when kids are asked to do something that is against their principles, they can use their parents as an excuse to defeat peer pressure – I think it’s important for kids to, at some point, learn to make those decisions on their own, and to claim them as such. Also, we can only sit on a fence for so long, and then we either have to jump, or someone is going to push us off in one way or another. Kids can, and should, learn to have convictions of their own.

I enjoyed the character names in the book, which generally provide some clue about each character (Piper McCloud is the girl who can fly, and Professor Mumbleby is hard to understand because of his strong accent). This might be perceived as gimmicky in an adult novel, but it’s a good way to introduce children to the literary technique of foreshadowing (which is more subtle in adult literature).

Some of the scenes are a bit too mature for some younger children – when Piper is tortured to the point of becoming disabled, and the horrible experiments conducted on animals are rather graphic. I also feel bad that the themes of forgiveness or redemption are not better explored in the character of Dr. Hellion.

One nitpick I have with this book is with regard to Conrad, the genius kid. Forester makes it seem as though he is a sociopath by making us privy to his thoughts of destroying the happiness of others, then suddenly we learn that his motivations are less evil and more about logic and self preservation – to me, this seems contradictory and contrived. She should not have give us his thoughts only to reverse them later in order to employ this plot twist.

Book series’ are very popular today, and Forester left the door open for more books in this setting, with the school and with the mysterious character, J. I looked her up to see if any more books are planned, but didn’t find anything. I DID, however, learn that this book started out as a screenplay, which I am happy about, because it’s one of those stories that made me think, this would be a great film!

One Response to “The Girl Who Could Fly, by Victoria Forester #1”

1. Jen Doyle says:

   May 3, 2010 at 2:09 pm

   I’m glad you picked up on the names. My husband (who read the book a few weeks ago) actually pointed out that he knew he couldn’t trust Dr. Leticia Hellion because of her name. I actually hadn’t noticed that the first read through, although Piper’s name and Pro. Mumbleby stood out to me. I also thought it funny that the author gave most of the townspeople names beginning with the same letter (Junie Jane, Billy Bob, Gomer Gun, Millie Mae Miller (who must have married into that name!), Timmie Todd, etc.) Such direct alliteration was almost cutely annoying.

   I especially loved the e e cummings quote that introduced the novel:

   To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best,
   night and day, to make you everybody else
   means to fight the hardest battle which any human
   being can fight; and never stop fighting.

   It’s also a perfect choice to quote because cummings, as a poet, does not conform to conventional poetic standards. Perfect for a novel about nonconformity and the fight to just be yourself.

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