The Girl Who Could Fly

After abandoning Narnia, I read to DD, The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester (2008, Square Fish, Macmillon, New York). We both loved it. We laughed we cried. I'm not kidding. There was one point when DD was beside herself, sobbing, because it looked like the girl, Piper, was going to die.

The Girl Who Could Fly is about a young girl who can fly. Duh. When she accidently shows her special talent to the local townsfolk all hell breaks loose. Piper agrees to go away to a school where lots of other children with special gifts are taught together and protected from exploitation by greedy and ruthless individuals and/or governments.

What fun eh? A school where every child has some sort of super power. To be honest, I wouldn't like to teach in such a school but DD and I both said we'd love to be a pupil there.

I chose as my power, to be able to understand and speak fluently, every language in the world. DD can't decide on hers.

Problem is, things at the school are not exactly as described on the box. Bullying, betrayal, heartbreak, daring, suspense, conflict, but also friendship and teamwork, and ultimately ........... (no I'm not giving it away) all feature in this great novel for 7 - 11 year olds (approximately).

I'm stoked that DD shares my love of science fiction. She has a whole collection of John Wyndham waiting for her when she's older. And not too much older - I started with The Chrysalids at age 12 when we had to read it for English Literature at school. From then on I was hooked.

A sure indication of how much DD loved this book was that she made me Google it to see if there is a sequel. There is: The Boy Who Knew Everything. The first book leaves just enough intrigue in the form of one big unanswered question to make you want to go running to get the sequel. However, The Girl Who Could Fly is also a complete story on its own with a very definite ending and most of the loose ends tied up.

DD also made me look to see if there is a film of the book. We found loads of comments along the lines of: As yet there is no movie but there jolly well should be. We totally agreed.