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3rd out of 29 books
—
3 voters
Flyaway
by
Lucy Christopher (Goodreads Author)
If they saved the swan together, could she then save her friend?
At the hospital, upset and scared after her dad has suffered a heart attack, 13-year-old Isla meets Harry. He's the first boy to understand her and her love of the outdoors. But Harry is ill, and as his health fails, Isla is determined to help him the only way she knows how. Together they watch a lone swan str...more
At the hospital, upset and scared after her dad has suffered a heart attack, 13-year-old Isla meets Harry. He's the first boy to understand her and her love of the outdoors. But Harry is ill, and as his health fails, Isla is determined to help him the only way she knows how. Together they watch a lone swan str...more
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published
October 1st 2011
by Chicken House
(first published January 4th 2010)
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Rewritten Review due to the review being erased. Enjoy.
Rate: 5 stars all the way
When I first heard about this book was right here on goodreads. I forgot about it for a while but then I was looking through my goodreads’s to read list and saw it. I immediately went to the library and put it on hold. Two days later I got it and started reading it.
Isla:
Harry:
Let me just say that Flyway is a touching, uplifting, and all around wonderful story. I just loved it. From the beginning to the end.
A young...more
Rate: 5 stars all the way
When I first heard about this book was right here on goodreads. I forgot about it for a while but then I was looking through my goodreads’s to read list and saw it. I immediately went to the library and put it on hold. Two days later I got it and started reading it.
Isla:
Harry:
Let me just say that Flyway is a touching, uplifting, and all around wonderful story. I just loved it. From the beginning to the end.
A young...more
Jun 10, 2013
Oceana Fern {Assorted Insanity}
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Oceana Fern {Assorted Insanity} by:
Nessa
Shelves:
signed-copies,
paper-copy,
middle-grade,
young-adult,
favorites,
five-stars,
owned,
realistic-fiction,
sobbing-alert
One of the reasons I love Lucy Christopher's books so much are because they're real. She knows that the teenagers reading her books aren't stupid, and instead of treating her younger teenage readers like they're nine, she gives us a novel that can be read by anyone.
Seeing as the narrator of FLYAWAY is a thirteen year-old girl, Lucy Christopher could've written a juvenile middle-grade book with ridiculously simple writing and stiff dialogue. But she didn't. Lucy Christopher knows teenagers; she k...more
Seeing as the narrator of FLYAWAY is a thirteen year-old girl, Lucy Christopher could've written a juvenile middle-grade book with ridiculously simple writing and stiff dialogue. But she didn't. Lucy Christopher knows teenagers; she k...more
10 likes · like · see review
After reading Lucy Christopher’s book Stolen, I knew I had to read the rest of what she wrote as well. I was not disappointed by the next book I chose by her. Flyaway is a touching, uplifting, and all around wonderful story.
A young girl - Isla (pronounced like eye-lah) - narrates this story that begins with her and her father going out early in the morning - like they do every year - to watch the whooping swans when they return to the nearby wetlands preserve, marking the start of winter. But th...more
A young girl - Isla (pronounced like eye-lah) - narrates this story that begins with her and her father going out early in the morning - like they do every year - to watch the whooping swans when they return to the nearby wetlands preserve, marking the start of winter. But th...more
I received the ARC of FLYAWAY from the BEA. What attracted me to this novel was the author, Lucy Christopher. I had read her first novel, STOLEN, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. FLYAWAY is quite different than STOLEN but also interesting. It's a MG novel narrated by Isla, pronounced I - la. Isla has a close relationship with her father. Together they share a love for birds, especially swans. As the swans migrate, Isla and her dad track them around their community.
SPOILER - SO BEWARE -...more
SPOILER - SO BEWARE -...more
Thirteen-year-old Isla and her father share a deep love for the swans that spend winter on the nearby lakes, chasing after them so they can tell where they have landed. But on one of their jaunts, her father becomes ill and is hospitalized. While visiting him, Isla meets Harry, who has leukemia and is waiting for a bone marrow transfusion. They bond over their shared interest in one swan that Harry can see from his window, a swan that became separated from the others and seems unsure how to fly....more
Isla and her Dad share a love for watching swans return to local ponds each year. This year, however, Isla sees that her father isn't quite himself. When he falls to the ground with a heart attack, Isla's quick action calling for help gets him to the hospital in time to save him. Dad has to have a heart-valve replacement, and during his stay, Isla meets Harry, a cancer patient who is waiting for for a bone-marrow transplant. Throughout Isla's worries, she concentrates on the swans and on a very...more
Jul 04, 2011
Maggie Stiefvater
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
middle-grade
This one is by the same author who wrote STOLEN (which you’ll recall that I adored). FLYAWAY is actually her first novel, published second in the states, and it’s a middle grade novel. Basically, it’s about a girl who becomes determined to reunite a lost swan with its flock after the girl’s father has a heart attack. Anyway, here are five reasons to read it:
1. It’s soft and sweet. The image of a feather comes to mind, even though this book is about a girl coping with the idea that her father and...more
1. It’s soft and sweet. The image of a feather comes to mind, even though this book is about a girl coping with the idea that her father and...more
15 likes · like · see review
I had read Lucy Christopher's "Stolen" and was eager to read her next book. This did not disappoint. The story is rich with well-developed characters about whom you come to care deeply. Isla, the main character, is a young teen who shares with her dad an intense interest in birding, and in watching wild whooper swans as they migrate into England for the winter. She and her dad are following a flock of swans as they migrate in, when he suffers a heart attack. As she and her family anxiously hover...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Stolen was one of the first books I ever reviewed and I absolutely fell in love with Christopher’s dreamy, lyrical prose and well-defined characters. I had put off reading Flyaway as I was nervous the book would never live up to Stolen, which I loved. Though I wouldn’t say Flyaway quite had the same impact on me as Stolen did (though I think it would be almost impossible for another book to be as intense as Stolen is) I really did enjoy Flyaway and am still a huge fan of Christopher’s writing.
As...more
As...more
Flyaway is only Lucy Christopher's second book, but already it feels like I've been reading her words for years. It's completely different to her debut novel, Stolen, but is just as good, if not better. This story is told by Isla, a teenage girl with a love for all types of birds. When her father is taken to hospital, it's there she meets a boy called Harry Brambling. Isla and Harry discover a swan out on the lake, and before they know it, everything changes.
Isla is an engaging narrator, with a...more
Isla is an engaging narrator, with a...more
Thirteen-year-old Isla and the rest of her family wait every year for the wild swans to return to her Granddad’s lake, indicating that winter is right around the corner. However, ever since Nan, Isla’s grandmother, passed away six years ago, the swans have not been returning to the lake. Just as Isla and her father hear the swans coming, they race towards them and tragedy strikes. Isla’s father falls to the ground, has a heart attack, is rushed to the hospital, and remains there for quite awhile...more
Lucy Christopher’s sophomore novel, Flyaway, is just as breathtakingly beautiful as her first. Though in a very different way.
Flyaway is written in such fluid prose that it takes you right into the heart of Isla’s world. I felt like I was watching the swans with Isla and her dad, riding to the hospital with her in the middle of the night and sitting with her while she started to make the best school project in history. Lucy Christopher captured an air of sadness with her soft, subtle prose. But...more
Flyaway is written in such fluid prose that it takes you right into the heart of Isla’s world. I felt like I was watching the swans with Isla and her dad, riding to the hospital with her in the middle of the night and sitting with her while she started to make the best school project in history. Lucy Christopher captured an air of sadness with her soft, subtle prose. But...more
This touching story, told from the voice of a pre-adolescent girl, was a wonderful read. The author Lucy Christopher uses her experiences from working as a nature guide help to support the factual information in the story about whooping swans, one of the primary focus of the story.
The narrative from Isla is both entertaining and real. Isla and her father have a special bond with their love of birds, particularly whooping swans. When her father suffers from a heart attack while they were watching...more
The narrative from Isla is both entertaining and real. Isla and her father have a special bond with their love of birds, particularly whooping swans. When her father suffers from a heart attack while they were watching...more
Being an avid bird lover myself, when Swans fly into the new electric wires & get zapped & fall to the ground right at the beginning of this book, my stomach turned & I was ready to chuck the book right away.
I'm so glad I gave it a chance, because the remainder of the story is a delight. Isla, the 13yr. old telling the story is a young girl who you can tell will be her own woman when she's an adult. She loves what she chooses to love despite the pressures young people all get to con...more
I'm so glad I gave it a chance, because the remainder of the story is a delight. Isla, the 13yr. old telling the story is a young girl who you can tell will be her own woman when she's an adult. She loves what she chooses to love despite the pressures young people all get to con...more
I’d heard absolutely nothing about this book when I got it. I just knew it was by Lucy Christopher, and since I LOVED her book “Stolen,” I decided to pick up this one with no questions asked. And what I found was a book quite different from “Stolen.” Not different in a bad way, just different. What I remember most about “Stolen” is the intensity of both the emotion and the writing, but here, both those aspects were handled in a much quieter way. The back of the book has this blurb by Booklist ca...more
Isla's dad has heart problems, but that doesn't stop him from chasing after the swans he loves. Following a flock, he collapses. He's hospitalized and facing surgery. Isla makes a friend in Harry, a boy with leukemia. She also notices a lone swan on the lake outside the hospital. The swan follows Isla when she runs but won't fly. Isla's concern for her dad and the swan become intermingled as she struggles to fix them both.
What I thought: Flyaway was interesting and unlike anything I've ever read...more
What I thought: Flyaway was interesting and unlike anything I've ever read...more
While the ideas presented in this book are interesting, I rated it at 2 stars. It is not the subject matter itself (which is heavy), but the writing which was heavy-handed. Perhaps because it is written as a children's book, some of the symbols and allusions were written to be extra obvious, but I think a lighter (not as in comedic, but as in deft) touch would have worked better. It felt as if the author were shining spotlights on certain character names and plot events and shouting "LOOK AT THI...more
1 like · like · see review
This is the book that I read for our first book club week. I really enjoyed it and I thought the language and the way that it was written was really beautiful, however it just was not my favorite. I cannot exactly place my finger on what it is, I enjoyed it but did not absolutely love it. It is the story of a young girl and her dad has a heart attack. Along with the storyline Isla also is nurturing a swan and simultaneously developing a relationship with a cancer patient at the hospital, Harry....more
Apr 24, 2011
Jess - The Tales Compendium
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
contemporary
This is beautifully written and I love how Isla throws herself into her school project to help distract her from the reality of whether her father will live, but also in an attempt to make him feel better, and how her sullen grandfather also joins in on the project as a welcome distraction to his own troubles. Even through we are never told how old Isla is (this did somewhat annoy me), sometimes I feel she could only be 9 years old, other times 13 or 14, I feel that her reactions are age appropr...more
I didn't really know anything about this one, just that it had good reviews and just recently made it onto ALSC's Notable Children's Books list. So I picked it up. And now that I am done, I can absolutely see why it was on the notable list. This book is absolutely brilliant and beautiful. Sometimes when I read a book where things are really up in the air, I want to sneak a peek at the ending to see if all of the characters are going to make it. But I wasn't tempted even once while reading this o...more
This book knocked me over. It's full of beautiful imagery about swans and birds, freedom and hope. Isla and her father take special delight in following the swans as they migrate from Iceland every year to a lake near their home. This year their flight has become dangerous because of a power plant and at the same time her father suffers a heart attack while they go looking for swans. In the hospital, Isla meets Harry, a talkative, interesting young patient awaiting a bone marrow transplant. In s...more
Flyaway is a heartwarming and lovely book that deals with family relationships, hope and friendship. Lucy and her father have a special relationship that, in part, revolves around their mutual love of bird watching and swan migrations. Lucy takes some grief from classmates about her hobby, but Harry is the first boy who respects and understands it. They have a sweet relationship and share a first kiss. This story will appeal to animal lovers, particularly bird lovers, but sensitive readers shoul...more
Aug 06, 2012
Susan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
great-stone-face-2012-13
Though it begins slowly, this is a must read. Isla must cope with her father's heart attack and subsequent stay in the hospital. She meets Harry at the hospital and they become friends, but his life, too, is threatened with illness. Isla, her dad, and Harry all have the love of birds, swans in particular, that binds them together and provides hope. Beautiful story! It will appeal to a sensitive, patient middle school reader. Anyone looking for an action driven plot won't find it in this book, bu...more
Jan 28, 2012
Georgie R
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Teen Girls
Plot: One cold winter mourning, Dad gets sick - and goes into hospital. It's there I meet Harry, with his scruffy hair and firefly eyes. From his window we watch a wild swan on the frozen lakes outside. There's something different about her, truly different. Almost magical. Perehaps, if we can help her, everything else will begin to make sense.
Review: There were 3 major themes to this book: Family, Swans and Harry. The book itself was suprisingly captivating and I even found myself crying towar...more
Review: There were 3 major themes to this book: Family, Swans and Harry. The book itself was suprisingly captivating and I even found myself crying towar...more
This was a really enjoyable read, but it wasn't in the same league as Stolen. The writing is still really lovely, but there was so much more adrenaline in Stolen for me. This was a nice book, but just didn't light my literary fires!
In Flyaway, Isla is a young girl who adores her father. They both go out birdwatching together, and both are more than a little obsessed with whooper swans. One morning on an early birdwatching trip, Isla's father suffers a cardiac arrhythmia. From then on pretty muc...more
In Flyaway, Isla is a young girl who adores her father. They both go out birdwatching together, and both are more than a little obsessed with whooper swans. One morning on an early birdwatching trip, Isla's father suffers a cardiac arrhythmia. From then on pretty muc...more
It's a little difficult for me to review this book fairly. It was written beautifully, true--but I had a bit of an issue with the main character. She seemed to act way too young for thirteen. It was so jarring that it took me right out of the story. But I tried to make allowances. I told myself the character was in strained circumstances. That there might be cultural differences. In the end, I just rolled my eyes and started skipping pages. But when Isla was with Harry, the story really took fli...more
Lucy Christopher writes another spectacular book in Flyaway. I've always been fascinated by birds, but never really bird watched or followed them. I thought the inside cover tells too much about the actual story, which is a shame but I liked the story so much that I don't mind. Flyaway tells the story of a girl who loses herself in whooper swans when she goes through some struggles in life. It's an amazing story that I think just about anyone would love.
I wanted to like this book more; it's actually quite positive and hopeful. It is well written but there was also a pervasive sense of foreboding that I found depressing, despite the positive outcomes. A girl's life is entwined with her father, suffering from heart problems, a new friend with leukemia and a young swan that won't fly. Along the way, she also builds her own set of wings and helps her grandfather heal from his own loss years earlier. C.
Audience: Intermediate
Genre: Fiction
1. Who are the main characters throughout this book?
2. Where does the title Flyaway stem from in the book?
3. How is Harry's situation correlated to the swan's situation?
4. What motive does Isla have in helping the flightless bird?
5. Justify Isla's actions within the story in two sentence.
6. If you were to change the ending of the book, what would you change and how?
Genre: Fiction
1. Who are the main characters throughout this book?
2. Where does the title Flyaway stem from in the book?
3. How is Harry's situation correlated to the swan's situation?
4. What motive does Isla have in helping the flightless bird?
5. Justify Isla's actions within the story in two sentence.
6. If you were to change the ending of the book, what would you change and how?
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Does It Live Up To Stolen? | 10 | 13 | Jan 01, 2013 10:50pm | |
| Does It Live Up To Stolen? | 1 | 3 | Apr 16, 2012 05:38am | |
| Paranormal Romanc...: Flyaway | 1 | 5 | Feb 21, 2012 06:05am |
Lucy Christopher was born in Wales but grew up in Australia. She obtained an Undergraduate degree at Melbourne University. She moved to the UK to earn a distinction in a Creative Writing MA from Bath Spa University. The novel she wrote for this class, The Long Flight, was picked up by a publisher under a new name of FLYAWAY.
Lucy’s debut novel, Stolen, was written as part for her PhD degree. Stolen...more
More about Lucy Christopher...
Lucy’s debut novel, Stolen, was written as part for her PhD degree. Stolen...more
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Thank you Pavlina :D. You should read it."
I just add it ;)
May 29, 2013 04:27pm
Thank you Pavlina :D. You should read it."
I just add it ;)"
Lol :D. I kn...more
May 29, 2013 04:32pm