Fly Away

by Patricia MacLachlan

Hardcover, 2014

Call number

J FIC MAR

Collection

Children's/YA Fiction

Genres

Children's Books

Publication

Margaret K. McElderry Books (2014), 128 pages

Description

While in North Dakota helping her Aunt Frankie prepare for a possible flood, Lucy finds her voice as a poet with the help of her two-year-old brother Teddy, the rest of their family, and a few cows.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Whisper1

This Newbery award-winning author never fails to produce a well-written, softly emotional book that leaves the reader smiling.

Fly Away is told from the perspective of the middle child, a young girl who loves her family, and is extremely bonded with her small brother. Longing to be able to sing,

Maggie's secret is that she knows while her brother is slow in learning to talk, he can communicate with her through singing. Late at night, she hears his soft voice and intuitively connects to him.

Later, it is Maggie's bond that enables her to sing to her brother when he is in peril, thus saving his life.

When a beloved Aunt needs assistance because her farm is hit hard by a mega storm, the family drives many miles to help. The beauty of MacLachlan's writing is that amid the storm, she focus' on the calm.

While short in pages, this book is long on touching the soul.

Highly recommended!

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LibraryThing member SarahGraceGrzy

Profound whimsicality.

Is that oxymoronic, you ask? I think not, at least not when in reference to any of Patricia MacLachlan's works.

I am blown away by each of the books I read by MacLachlan. They are absolutely beautiful, from the gorgeous cover illustrations, to the story, to the sentence

structure and writing style, all down to the formatting. MacLachlan is the master of doing incomplete sentences beautifully, capturing the whimsicality of life, and dropping profound, heartfelt and heartwarming themes throughout. By far the best children's author I have ever read. And one of the most wonderful things about her writing, is that while they are intended for children, they are enjoyable by all ages, which is what makes them so phenomenal.

Highly recommended!

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LibraryThing member bookwren

As in her other recent novellas - Waiting for the Magic; The True Gift; Kindred Spirits; The Truth of Me - Patricia MacLachlan exquisitely portrays family dynamics through the eyes of children. These stories are like comfort food, especially for spirits starved for the kinder side of life.

LibraryThing member ChristianR

This was a little too melodramatic to me. Lucy and her family drive to see their Aunt Frankie, whose lives in North Dakota where the river floods every year, threatening her house. The family is going to help her, even if she doesn't want it.
Everybody has a thing. Lucy writes poetry but can't

sing, her sister Gracie can draw, her baby brother Teddy doesn't talk yet but hums in perfect pitch to Lucy (only) every night, her father loves cows and her mother loves chickens. They're all somewhat one-dimensional in my mind. When Teddy is lost and they are looking for him, Lucy's singing, bad as it is, gets him to sing back so they can find him.
I know it's for young children, but I think it could have been more complex.

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LibraryThing member debnance

Lucy and her family are headed to help her aunt. It is flooding around her aunt's house and Lucy's family wants to help. Great and memorable characters in the story, all with a bit of a stubborn Midwestern quality that makes them endearing. Lucy's brother is two but doesn't talk yet...or so her

parents think. Lucy's mother has aspirations that have not been met and is a little disappointed with how life has turned out. Lucy herself doesn't sing and that's another sadness for her mother. A complex story perfect for a young reader.

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