The Fledgling (Jane Langton)
Mar. 14th, 2011 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
booksofafeatherShort review: A fantasy story, quite unrealistic, but beautiful, of a girl who always believed she could fly, and learns to fly with a goose who becomes her friend. Unfortunately, this story has a very painful ending. But for most of it, it's beautiful, and has a lot of refreshing differences from most books like this, although the writing has a simple sort of feeling.
Writing: It's not as good as it could be... a little average. Though the things that happen generally make up for it.
From a winged person's perspective...: The main character in the story has wings in her soul for sure. Like the boy in Wings, she believes in her flying from an early age while her family long to "cure" her and make her "normal", but she keeps flying and believing. A lot of flight scenes, in fact, most of the book is this. The book is very good at not being negative about non-humans.
Trigger warnings: There is a big sub-plot about hunting and shooting geese with some vivid descriptions.
More thoughts...: My feeling through most of this story was that it was going to be like Wings, although, a less realistic version. One thing about this story is that it isn't realistic about what birds can do (carry a child on their back??), but the feel of the story is more a fable, where this doesn't matter. It's not the kind of story where you can blame it for that, as in other stories that try to be realistic all the way through and then mess up some detail.
This book is refreshing in many ways. I was so happy to see that when the main character thought about kissing the goose prince, and wondered if he would turn into a human, she thinks in the end she "didn't want him to change into something else. He was beautiful just the way he was." It's sadly too rare in these books to see it appreciated that something other than human is a beautiful way to be, and even if you had the chance to be human, you might not want it. Even the family, who like most families in this circumstance would want to make their child "normal", have some interesting philosophy about her, even though they do say that. Mostly, the Aunt, who is even willing to let Georgie go and be with the birds because what she is experiencing is a "precious thing".
Sadly it ends in a tragic way and in a way that doesn't feel it makes up for the loss. The goose prince is killed and Georgie all of a sudden, without much reason decides she has become too old to fly. It's unsure what the very last part of the story is meant to mean... maybe a new flock of geese are coming to help her fly away again... but it's not certain. Why do stories like this always seem to need to have such tragic endings? It is as if no one if allowed to be happy for too long.... At least the book shows that her grief is long and real.
I want to give this book four out of five for being so good on the subject of non-humans most of the way through. But, the ending is too tragic and the writing is not great. So, I think three and a half... it's very worth reading though... and a short book... just, also prepare to be disappointed.
Writing: It's not as good as it could be... a little average. Though the things that happen generally make up for it.
From a winged person's perspective...: The main character in the story has wings in her soul for sure. Like the boy in Wings, she believes in her flying from an early age while her family long to "cure" her and make her "normal", but she keeps flying and believing. A lot of flight scenes, in fact, most of the book is this. The book is very good at not being negative about non-humans.
Trigger warnings: There is a big sub-plot about hunting and shooting geese with some vivid descriptions.
More thoughts...: My feeling through most of this story was that it was going to be like Wings, although, a less realistic version. One thing about this story is that it isn't realistic about what birds can do (carry a child on their back??), but the feel of the story is more a fable, where this doesn't matter. It's not the kind of story where you can blame it for that, as in other stories that try to be realistic all the way through and then mess up some detail.
This book is refreshing in many ways. I was so happy to see that when the main character thought about kissing the goose prince, and wondered if he would turn into a human, she thinks in the end she "didn't want him to change into something else. He was beautiful just the way he was." It's sadly too rare in these books to see it appreciated that something other than human is a beautiful way to be, and even if you had the chance to be human, you might not want it. Even the family, who like most families in this circumstance would want to make their child "normal", have some interesting philosophy about her, even though they do say that. Mostly, the Aunt, who is even willing to let Georgie go and be with the birds because what she is experiencing is a "precious thing".
Sadly it ends in a tragic way and in a way that doesn't feel it makes up for the loss. The goose prince is killed and Georgie all of a sudden, without much reason decides she has become too old to fly. It's unsure what the very last part of the story is meant to mean... maybe a new flock of geese are coming to help her fly away again... but it's not certain. Why do stories like this always seem to need to have such tragic endings? It is as if no one if allowed to be happy for too long.... At least the book shows that her grief is long and real.
I want to give this book four out of five for being so good on the subject of non-humans most of the way through. But, the ending is too tragic and the writing is not great. So, I think three and a half... it's very worth reading though... and a short book... just, also prepare to be disappointed.
