Wings

by William Loizeaux

At first it looks like a small gray ball of fluff, its head a cloud of frizzy feathers, fine as dandelion seeds. The baby bird isn't even strong enough to spread its wings, but ten-year-old Nick is determined to save it. Together with his best friend, he coaxes the wild bird he names Marcy to eat worms and take rides on their fingers. Then he watches, amazed, as she finally opens her wings - and flies! As Marcy grows, so does Nick - forced to make...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374348022
• ISBN13: 9780374348021
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 138 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 7 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 5

Customer Reviews

An easy, warm story.

Nick's discovery of a helpless little bird begins an unusual friendship between the bird 'Marcy' and Nick, who learns to care for her and views her daily changes. Within the simple and common story of a kid nursing a wild animal and facing its successful departure is also the story of Nick's own changes and problems with family and friends. An easy, warm story.

To see the morning come

In a February 8, 2006 edition of Christian Science Monitor, author William Loizeaux offered these thoughts on the "elastic" nature of the personal memoir: "memoir is the creation of a mind remembering. The writer recalls and reflects on the past and evidence gathered about that past. Usually, the more evidence the better, but as any memoirist will tell you, remembering is always a tricky business." With memory such a tricky beast and literary scapegoats like James Frey to draw attention to the facts surrounding a person's past, it's seems safest to do as William Loizeaux has done and fictionalize an important moment in one's past instead. You cannot be held responsible for what is and is not true when you produce fiction. Instead, if you happen to mention after the fact that such n' so in the book really did happen to you, you'll meet someone delighted with this startling piece of evidence. And that certainly beats the complete stranger that may take you to task over whether or not you really did, say, comb your hair counterclockwise on the 15th of November. Loizeaux, however, has gone even farther and has turned a small moment from his childhood into a children's book. It could have been awful or patronizing or puffed up with self-regard. It could have been, but it isn't. Instead, it's a misleadingly simple tale of a boy and his mockingbird. A tale worth remembering. Nick found the bird standing in the center of the street looking like nothing so much as a circular ball of feathers. As it turned out, it was a baby mockingbird, alone and abandoned by its parents. After naming the little creature Marcy, Nick comes to care for the bird with a little help from his mother and his best friend Mate. Once she has thrived under his care, Marcy is able to offer Nick a great deal of comfort. She listens to his problems, whether they involve how his father died in the Korean War or the man who's currently courting his mother. The book follows the two friends as they experience a whole summer together. But when a family trip means that Marcy and Nick must separate, the boy must learn how to let go of something he loves, even if that means losing it along the way. Children's librarians tend to eye adult authors that have crossed over into the world of kiddie lit with a wary skeptical eye. Adult novelists, after all, have proved time and time again that they are not always able to produce a believable title for children. Such writing often requires an entirely different set of muscles, and too often you'll see these authors either going too far and creating something faux-childish or not far enough, creating a book of laughable complexity. Allow me to set your mind at rest in the case of Mr. Loizeaux. With an ease that is sure to infuriate his frustrated adult-authorial brethren, Loizeaux's "Wings" reads as if it was written by a man who has been penning children's books for years. He doesn't speak down to his readers or insult their in