Sparrow's Flight
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Julie Hoffman is sixteen, clumsy, and a dreamer. Not such a great combo when your mom has moved you to a new school on Long Island. Feeling alone and ugly, Julie dreams about her estranged dad coming back and calling her Sparrow again. All she has left to remember him by is his collection of adventure and fantasy novels—which propels her into developing a fantasy of her own.
In her new school Julie meets the members of the Clan of the Western Holt—a group of bright, imaginative kids like herself who don’t quite fit in. They devour comic books, sew costumes for Renaissance Faires, stage mock hunts, and huddle together for warmth and friendship against a world that ridicules them.
The Clan brings out a talent for writing that has lain dormant in Julie. With Dana Burke, a young artist, Julie begins to write her own fantasy—‘Sparrow’s Flight’—and in it she puts all of her crises and dreams. She is able to give voice to her fears and desires through he make-believe characters—chronicling a painful experience with love, betrayal, and death.
In her fantasy, Julie goes on an imaginary quest for her father and a mission to destroy the evil sorceress—her mom. But when she has the real-life chance to accomplish both, Julie finds that she has changed and makes her first adult decision.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shy, clumsy Julie, 16, would rather cast herself as the heroine of her fantasies, modeled after the sword-and-sorcery novels she devours, than face up to real life and its problems. She is friendless at her new school until she meets ``Darkmoon,'' the Chieftess of the Clan, a group of fellow fantasy buffs. Thrilled to find she fits in with the group, Julie starts cutting classes and lets her grades slip; her mother (the ``Ogress'') is less than overjoyed with this development and life at home becomes a pitched battle. Julie escapes the tension by slipping into her favorite fantasy, in which Princess Sparrow fights the Ogress to restore the long-lost king (her father aban doned the family when she was three) to his throne . In the book's tense climax, Julie is forced to confront reality and act for herself. Posner ( Sweet Pain ) presents his characters empathetically, and powerfully conveys the lure of fantasy. He is adept at building anticipation through inference and dialogue, rather than through direct commentary. However, some of the relationships are too sketchily portrayed, and although the story is set in Long Island, N.Y., there is no sense of place. The book is well-paced, though, and Posner's talent for building anticipation and dread will keep readers hooked to the finish. Ages 12-up.
