Sparrow's Flight

by Richard Posner

Abandoned by her father and living with her strict mother, Julie plays fantasy games with her new friends and daydreams about being a princess in search of her father.

220 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

b. 1944
Also writes as Dayle Courtney, Jonathan Craig, Iris Foster, Erica Mitchell, Beatrice Murray, Alayna Richards, Paul Todd, Dick Wine.

Reviews

[Azure · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird book that I feel like I wouldn't actually recommend to anyone, but I did read it an absurd number times as a teenager and it was really important to me. I think as daydreamy, introverted, book-nerdy, fantasy-loving kid who didn't fit in anywhere, especially living in a particularly strict religious household where stories of dragons and magical adventures were considered too close to witchcraft to be allowed in the house, I related heavily to Julie. Her adventures with The Clan were pure wish fulfillment to read, and whatever weird preachy message the author was trying to push (That kids who are allowed to Play Pretend will take it too far without Adult Supervision? That only pervs and abusive people are in fandom as adults?? I don't know) was totally lost on me.

Teenage me completely dismissed whatever weird stuff was going on between Shadow and what's-his-face. I was just excited and relating intensely to Julie finding her place among these like-minded people and quarreling with her mom over it. I really loved the concept of Darkmoon, dismissing how manipulative could be-- she was really *into it* in the way that I often was and wished someone else would be with me. I had always wished a girl would knock at my window in the middle of the night just to invite me to go running with her for ritualistic purposes. I knew I would have fallen into all the same traps that Julie did when it came to her (I also had no idea how gay I was at the time).

These days there's a lot better stuff out there, particularly stuff actually written by kids of this era that grew up, but I still have a weird nostalgic attachment to this book.