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Summary
Summary
Ever since her parents divorced, Falcon has been in charge-of herself, her younger brother, and even her loving but self-absorbed mother. One day in Central Park she finds a large, glowing, hot egg that no one can identify. With her wise but eccentric great-aunt, a nurturing neighbor, and a wacky ornithologist from the Museum of Natural History, she establishes a secret society: the Friends of Egg. As Falcon watches and cares for the egg, she is able to forget some of her problems and evento share her secret with her family. And when a baby dragon hatches, everyone is amazed except Great-Aunt Emily, who knows that dragons appear only for a reason. A beautifully crafted, memorable first novel, Falcon's Egg combines fantasy with a poignant story of love in a troubled single-parent family.
Author Notes
Luli Gray belongs to a family for whom, she says, reading and writing are as necessary as breathing." Born in Argentina, and for years a resident of New York City, she now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Falcon and the Charles Street Witch is the sequel to her first novel, Falcon's Egg which received rave reviews and was an ALA Notable Children's Book for 1995 and a School Library Journal Best Book of 1996."
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6A compelling rite-of-passage tale that moves right along to a satisfying conclusion. It's not unusual for a falcon to have an egg unless Falcon is an 11-year-old girl in New York City and the egg is red, hot, and discovered in Central Park. Falcon enlists the help of an older friend and neighbor to hide it until it hatches, fearing that her mother won't let her keep it. Soon elderly Aunt Emily; her ornithologist friend, Fernando Maldonado; and Falcon's younger brother join the cozy group that gathers to ponder the egg. When Egg hatches, she is a dragon. A solution to where she is to live works for a while, but in time Falcon realizes that Egg has to be free to look for others of her kind if indeed there are any. Each of the characters is rich in wit, wisdom, and human foibles. Clearly Falcon needs a little magic in her life as her artist mother is often totally absorbed in her work and the girl has to take responsibility for the household and her brother. Egg is the magic she needs but must give up. Though for a younger crowd than Anne McCaffrey's dragon books, this one is equally enticing and leaves readers longing for just a few minutes with a dragon. The real world blends well with the fantasy elements as tidbits of lore and locale are woven seamlessly. A book for any library serving young readers and dreamers.Jody McCoy, Casady School, Oklahoma City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Artfully braiding together real life and fantasy, Gray begins this inviting first novel as her 11-year-old heroine, Falcon, finds a scarlet egg in Central Park. As Falcon deliberates what she should do, Gray serves up one of the many endearing nuggets in her narrative: "She knew that you must never take an egg from a nest, but she wasn't sure about eggs without nests; grownups had so many rules that you didn't know about until you broke them." Falcon chooses to bring the egg home, and shares her discovery only with several carefully selected adults: her neighbor Ardene; her great-great-aunt, Emily; and an ornithologist Emily knows. After these self-proclaimed Friends of Egg spend months keeping vigil over the egg, it finally hatches-and out pops a creature that Aunt Emily, drawing on her own experiences, identifies as a dragon. Gray gently contrasts Falcon's devotion to Egg with an insightful, light-handed depiction of Falcon's relationships with her divorced parents, well-meaning but disorganized Missy, who saddles Falcon with undue responsibility for her younger brother, and Peter, who spends most of his time traveling. In an affecting conclusion, the girl sets the beloved dragon free as family and friends look on. An imaginative and meaningful tale, told with flair. Ages 8-12. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In a new Gothic novel about the fascinating Twite family, Joan Aiken employs her usual exuberantly imaginative and eclectic mix of fantasy, danger, alternative history, scientific prognostication, daring adventures, and eccentric characters to clutch the attention of the most jaded reader. Is Twite, the heroine of Is Underground (Delacorte), and her cousin Arun travel to the channel ports to reunite Arun with his mother. She is a member of the Silent Sect, a religious group that does not speak, sing, or use bright colors. Is and Arun find that his mother has disappeared, but her paintings of flowers in brilliant colors are hidden in her house. They also find the townspeople in mortal fear of the Merry Gentry, smugglers who slip their goods - mammoth tusks - on trains through the channel tunnel and hold children hostage to enforce cooperation from the townspeople. Is and Arun meet up with some interesting characters and settings: Admiral Fishskin, who keeps large spiders as pets and rides a bike pulled by a kite; Dominic de la Twite, the horribly charismatic leader of the Silent Sect; and the sailing ship, wedged in a tree by floods, where they find Arun's mother, Is's sister Penny, and the speechless child Pye. The wildly twisting plot careens through caves, inns, tunnels, forests, and the French countryside until it reaches its furious but satisfactory climax. Joan Aiken uses up more ideas in one book than many authors use in a lifetime; not only is Aiken way ahead of her novel's historical period in using the channel tunnel, she also has her characters speculate on atomic fission, undergo dental implants, and use mindspeak. A mind-bending and exhilarating adventure. a.a.f. Jane Cutler Rats! Illustrated by Tracey Campbell Pearson. Brothers Jason and Edward, who were introduced to middle-grade readers in the popular novel No Dogs Allowed (Farrar), have returned for further adventures in this equally engaging sequel. Now in the fourth grade, Jason is forced to wend his way through the minefield of female social ritual when he is handed a list of ten girls and asked to rate them. One innocent step leads to another until he finds himself going steady - a rather daunting notion. But his friend Lucas, who benefits from the counsel of an older sister, assures him that, in the fourth grade, once a boy has asked a girl to go steady and she has accepted, that's the end of it; they have nothing further to do with each other. To Jason's relief, it all works out pretty much as Lucas described. First-grader Edward, meanwhile, is confronting his own ghosts - literally - as well as haunted houses and graveyards and Jason's not-always-helpful descriptions of same. They do join forces in persuading their parents to allow them to have pet rats, which procreate in spite of the boys' best intentions. Like any siblings, the brothers alternately squabble and support each other. Along with the convincing characterizations, the situations in this episodic novel reflect everyday events with a lighthearted humor that will appeal to those children who have read through Beverly Cleary and are looking for more. n.v. Luli Gray Falcon's Egg When eleven-year-old Falcon finds a glowing red egg in Central Park, she decides to keep it. Falcon's book-illustrator mother is none too dependable, especially when a deadline looms, and so Falcon enlists the help of her great-great-aunt Emily, as well as one of her neighbors and an ornithologist at the Museum of Natural History - who comes in handy when what hatches out of the egg is a dragon. Falcon also acts as mother to her little brother, Toody, so she must work to balance caring for both Toody and Egg (the dragon hatchling). As Egg grows, the adults around Falcon rally to provide her with the care and support she needs. The book ends on a note of parallel maternal love - as Falcon loves Egg, so her mother loves Falcon. Any tale of a resourceful girl living in New York City and aided by a collection of eccentric adults brings to mind E. L. Konigsburg's stories, but Falcon's struggle to raise and keep Egg - and, finally, to let Egg go - is wholly her own. sarah guille Garry Kilworth The Electric Kid In a grungy, post-apocalyptic world filled with "skidders," "wazzoo-trucks," junk food, and neon, Hotwire and Blindboy make their way as best they can, teaming up to find and fix gadgets thrown away in the dump where they live. The apocalypse was economic, not nuclear, and now the world is clearly separated into haves and have-nots, with Hotwire and her pal on the negative side of the economic divide. Hotwire is an orphan of indeterminate age who got her name from her ability to fix anything electronic; Blindboy's ability to hear electronic signals beyond the level of normal human hearing more than makes up for his lack of sight. The pair's unusual talents allow them to scrape by, until they come to the attention of an underworld kingpin who forces them to turn their skills to his own evil ends. During their time of service to the mobster, Hotwire discovers his plot to bring the city to its knees and, with the help of a kindly policeman, thwarts the plan. In the end, she and Blindboy find a job, a home, and something close to a family. This action-filled tale, dripping with atmosphere, will please fans of sci-fi and detective stories alike. sarah guille Margaret Mahy Tingleberries, Tuckertubs and Telephones: A Tale of Love and Ice-Cream Illustrated by Robert Staermose. This briskly funny cross between a farce and a fantasy, with a strong dose of technology, concerns a young man named Saracen Hobday. He lives on Breakfast Island with his grandmother, a retired detective-inspector, who cherishes a bottle of Policeman's Foot Oil and a medal for capturing the dreadful pirate Grudge-Gallows. They lead a simple life of gardening, keeping cows, and running up and down the jetty to meet the launch from town. Saracen is extremely shy and never talks to anyone - not even on the old black telephone in the hall. Then Granny is called out of retirement to chase the escaped Grudge-Gallows in the Antarctic. Soon she sends Saracen a previously unknown plant, and he is launched on a career marketing tingleberries; he even uses the telephone to keep business booming. Things happen fast after that. Saracen falls in love with the telephone operator and the captain of the launch; he makes a great deal of money; the telephone company awards him a solid gold, diamond- studded phone for his patronage; and Captain Grudge-Gallows, intending to filch the gold phone, arrives in his stolen vessel. But Saracen and Granny intercept him, bringing this glorious frolic to a fun-filled end. a.a.f. Megan Whalen Turner Instead of Three Wishes These seven deftly told tales share a common theme of the meeting of magic and everyday life. The stories are fresh and unusual: "Leroy Roachbane" tells the story of a young boy who uses his modern-day, urban-bred proficiency at killing cockroaches to become a hero when he finds himself in prehistoric Sweden; in "The Nightmare," a bully is transformed when he realizes the power of dreams. Sightings of little green men in New Hampshire lead to a tabloid stampede in "A Plague of Leprechaun"; and two lonely people - one from the past and one from the future - find each other in a ghostly "Factory." In the title story, a skeptical young woman turns down an elf prince's offer of three wishes, and ends up fulfilling her heart's desire instead. The first-time author combines a shrewd wit with an eye for the endearingly absurd. A fine debut. sarah guille Rachel Vail Daring to Be Abigail Eleven-year-old Abigail plans to "reinvent herself" at Camp Nashaquitsa, where the other kids don't know the Abby from home. She makes friends easily with the girls in Bunk Eleven and, after a series of messages sent back and forth across the social hall, even finds herself with a boyfriend (although, as she admits to her new best friend, Tracy, "Going out isn't that different from not knowing each other"). Abigail's happiness in her newfound popularity is tempered somewhat by her empathy for the one friendless girl in her bunk, Dana, in whom Abigail recognizes parts of herself. Abigail is torn between defending Dana from the other girls' tauntings and protecting her own acceptance among them. Vail tells her story skillfully through letters written by Abigail interspersed with a third-person narrative that allows the reader to see that each of the other girls also experiences her own fears, worries, and insecurities. Abigail's letters slowly reveal her complex emotions about her father's death three years earlier, her relationship with him, and her current concern and feelings of responsibility for her mother and younger brother. Abigail believes that her father was always disappointed in her for being "wimpy"; now she tells the other girls that she never turns down a dare. The bunk's mistreatment of Dana escalates out of control when Abigail is dared to urinate in Dana's mouthwash. After Dana uses the contaminated mouthwash, Abigail cannot even recognize herself as someone who would do such a thing, and when she is sent home from camp, she struggles to come to terms with exactly who she is. In a letter to her father she admits, "I'm not scared of the dark anymore . . . but now I'm scared of other things that a nightlight doesn't help (because they are in me)." There are no easy resolutions, but Abigail does begin to accept herself, and she asks her father if he will, too. As in her other books, Vail displays her talent for capturing the humor and angst of early adolescence; this latest novel for a slightly younger audience is her most sophisticated yet. l.a. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A wonderfully beguiling story of a Manhattan sixth grader who finds something unusual in Central Park. Falcon's first thought when she sees the large, red egg that is almost too hot to hold is that it must be a secret. She slips it past her mother 6and hides it with a neighbor. Months ter, before a fascinated audience that includes Great-aunt Emily and Freddy, a museum ornithologist, Egg hatches--a baby dragon. Caring for a dragon is no easy task; Egg eats everything except birdseed, won't drink anything that isn't boiling, and becomes dangerously hot. Further, his wings begin to develop. Despite the usual disclaimer, these characters don't seem fictitious; from bumbling Freddy to lonely, fiercely possessive Falcon, each has a past (especially Emily, who turns out to know an amazing amount about dragons), a distinct personality, and an individual voice. Egg, too, is entirely convincing, with her tiny red scales, golden claws, and distracted air; like a lion cub or a young hawk, she seems tame when small, but is really a dangerous wild animal, and in the end, she must be released. In a grand debut, Gray deftly mixes the marvelous and the ordinary, adding touches of comedy and magic, enriching the plot with well-chosen subplots, and leaving out predictable twists and bad guys--Falcon's conflicts are almost entirely internal ones. Engaging, intelligent, and well-wrought: the best dragon story since Donn Kushner's A Book Dragon (1988). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 3^-5. An enchanting world of secrets and magical creatures awaits readers in this charming story that begins with 11-year-old Falcon's happening upon a very unusual egg in Central Park. Knowing her mother would never let her keep it, Falcon confides, instead, in her neighbor Ardene Taylor and her great-great-aunt Emily, whose ornithologist friend soon becomes involved. The suspense builds as the four gather in Ardene's apartment every chance they get to keep watch on the egg, speculating about when, or if, it will hatch, and what kind of creature is inside. Not quite halfway through the book, the egg hatches, but the remainder of the story isn't anticlimactic. Actually, it's after the hatching that the adventure really begins. Gray has created a magical fantasyland of such realism that children will easily slip inside along with Falcon and linger even after the final page of the book has been turned. --Lauren Peterson