Received this book directly from the author and was a bit disappointed that he didn't bother to sign it. Very cute book though and a great kid's story. I think it is a really inspiring book that teaches kids that they can do whatever they set their minds to. I think I am going to donate this book to a local kids school or the children's library. ( )

When I received the opportunity to read a free copy of Charlie Sparrow and the Secret of Flight, I thought, "Well . . . why not?" Talking animal books aren't really my thing, mostly because I tend to feel like the animals are over-anthropomorphized (just humans in different shape). But this book pleasantly surprised me.

I liked the concept of a society of birds who don't know they are capable of flight; the concept was executed surprisingly well, too, way better than I expected. I kept on asking myself the question, "Yeah, but why is Charlie the only bird to figure it out?" -- and the author answered it pretty satisfactorily. The conflict was interesting and well-executed, the writing flows smoothly, and the number of illustrations in the book surprised and impressed me. All to the good.

The illustrations I'm more neutral about, as they're a bit amateur. Still, since the author drew them himself, I feel this is mitigated by the coolness of the author doing his own illustrating. The illustrations for the covers are a bit more problematic to me, since the coloring looks like it was done in markers by a nine-year-old kid, and that's not a very appealing coloring style to me. But the overall design of the front and back covers are great, and I think a nine-year-old kid might very well like the coloring style of the cover illustrations better than me, so that's okay.

So why the three stars? Well, there were two serious issues, and two minor ones, and I couldn't overlook these.

The first minor issue is that there are quite a few typos, for a book this size. I think I counted about five or six in the first thirty pages. Now, after that, I don't think I noticed any, so it just needs a little proofreading at the beginning. Still, I do think these could have been noticed before publication and fixed (a missing closing quotation mark, a lack of space between two words, "suspensiong" bridge, that sort of thing).

The second minor issue is a scene with a butterfly. I think it's very cool that Charlie gets his idea about flying from watching a butterfly (very good idea!), but there's a noticeable error, in that the butterfly is supposed to have just emerged from its chrysalis:

"The butterfly flapped its wings once, then twice, and, on a third time, rose up into the air."

Can you spot the issue? Newly emerged butterflies cannot fly. It takes several hours before their wings dry, and only then it is safe to flap them. Yes, it's a nitpick, but there is no good reason why it *had* to be a butterfly just emerging from its chrysalis, and many children in this age group will be aware of this fact, since it's a common science project in elementary school to study a chrysalis and make notes about it.

These two issues only knock it down to four and a half stars for me. Unfortunately, there are two more issues that are much more major. Spoilers ensue, so do not read these unless you are okay with this.

At the midpoint of the book, the main character's father does something that is an out-and-out betrayal. He goes from seeming like a skeptic to very unlikeable indeed. He later explains himself as "I was trying to do this for your own good," but as he had promised not ten pages ago to promise to give it a chance (and then left to betray his son's secret BEFORE doing this), he seems inexcusable to me. Worse still, there is no confrontation about it, no consequences to *him,* and no apology. The only thing we get along these lines is this:

Mrs. Sparrow: "She had barely spoken to Mr. Sparrow since."
Charlie: "At first he had been angry, but he knew his dad was only trying to protect him. Now he was only sad."

These would have been sufficient if they had come AFTER a huge confrontation and blow-up and a declaration that Charlie's father had betrayed him, but they did not. It came across, therefore, that his father was totally excused for betraying Charlie *despite promising to give it one chance.* Particularly when you consider the consequences of his father's betrayal, and the fact that it affected absolutely everybody in the hidden community and not just Charlie, this was a BIG DEAL. Charlie's father needed to apologize, and Charlie needed to confront him about it.

Even this is only a moderate problem, since you could excuse it as a difference in personalities. (Maybe.) But the other problem drove me out of the story completely.

At the climax of the book, there is a court ruling that is absolutely horrifying. The judge goes way further than I had anticipated, way past justice into downright persecution. The judge's punishment for Charlie's people in and of itself, I can see -- but the judge's punishment for the doctor is outright and blatant cruelty. (How anybody could think that forcing a doctor to *personally remove the feathers* of his former patients -- a procedure that he had already made clear he considered reprehensible in every possible way -- was okay --!)

I figured it would take a truly spectacular fight back from the main character to combat this. Unfortuantely, we got . . . nothing. He hopped up in the air and showed that he could fly. Oh, yippee. Suddenly, absolutely everybody changes their mind about the whole thing, the judge is shocked and does a complete 180, all problems are solved, and everything is hunky-dory.

Uh . . . what?

Too easy. Too easy. *Much* too easy. It was completely unbelievable, after setting up such a huge conflict through their whole society, and then whamming us with such a horrifying climax.

If this were realistic, Charlie's flying would have raised the stakes even further, leading to the judge (who was, remember, clearly strongly biased against his minority) coming down even harder on him, possibly leading to Charlie leading his friends to have to flee their society. Could that work in a children's book? Sure. In fact, it would have been an even stronger story thematically, because it would have shown that standing up for yourself can have major consequences, but that even when these happen, you keep standing up for yourself and don't give in. Children need to know this.

Could this have ultimately been solved in a peaceful and simpler way? Absolutely. Weeks of picketing and demonstrations that anybody can learn to fly would have been plausible enough. With the flying birds fleeing for now, and then sneaking back in to show their friends and neighbors that it was possible and safe, the whole thing could have caught on and been plausible within a few weeks.

But a shock in two seconds will not do it. To change societal attitudes takes time and exposure, and shock initially only drives people to react strongly -- not to *think.* When people get the time to think, they start to decide if they still believe what they had previously (many), or whether they have changed their minds now (many).

So . . . that's my really long review about it. It had real potential, this story, and it could have been an excellent example of a story for its age group. But it needed some major revision in those two points of the story, because it's broken without a real solution that children can learn from and believe.

That said, this author did an excellent job of writing, and I think he has the potential to write other books that are very good indeed. ( )

The way Andersons' deft illustrations convey exactly what the character is feeling, without the need for words, is really nothing short of genius. David Anderson has created a suspenseful story that will have you and your young
reader hooked...

Very cute children’s book. I can't recommend them enough! ( )