Review
"There really is nobody quite like Almond writing in children's or adult's fiction today." The Times"
Almond aims at a younger audience than usual, but crafts a tale at least as emotionally complex as any of his heavier outings. Young Lizzie's widowed dad has regressed back to childhood - to the point where she has to force him to eat breakfast, can't get him out of pajamas and even frets about leaving him alone in the house while she's at school. Worse, he's constructed wings, taken to eating bugs and worms on the sly to get his weight down and entered the Great Human Bird Competition in order to "make me mark at last." Building on this depressing premise, the author unexpectedly fashions a buoyant story in which "It doesn't matter if we fly or if we fall. We've got each other. We're doing it together. That's all that matters." The characters sport silly names like Doreen Doody and Mr. Poop, and Dunbar's colored illustrations, which appear on nearly every spread, evoke Quentin Blake. Readers will definitely come away with mixed feelings - not necessarily a bad thing, to be sure. (Fiction. 10-12) (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Lizzie and Dad live in a rainy town in the north of England. It's just the two of them, and Auntie Doreen, who pops round to check Lizzie's spellings and tell Dad he's daft - and make them nice hot dumplings. But today there's something unusual going on: why is Dad building himself a pair of wings and studying the birds to see how they fly? The Great Human Bird Competition of course!
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