Fly Free - Hardcover

Thong, Roseanne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590785509 ISBN 13: 9781590785508

Publisher: Astra Young Readers, 2010

Synopsis

When you do a good deed, it will come back to you. Mai loves feeding the caged birds near the temple but dreams that one day she'll see them fly free. Then she meets Thu and shares the joy of feeding the birds with her. This sets a chain of good deeds in motion that radiates throughout her village and beyond. Set in Vietnam, Roseanne Thong's inspiring story, an Asian-Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Book, is elegantly illustrated with watercolor on wood by Eujin Kim Neilan.

About this title

About the Author:

Roseanne Thong is the award-winning author of many children's books, including Wish, Red Is a Dragon, and Round is a Mooncake. She lives in Southern California.

Eujin Kim Neilan is the illustrator of Imagine a Dragon by Laurence Pringle. The Best Winds by Laura E. Williams, and The Rabbit and the Dragon King and In the Moonlight Mist: A Korean Tale, both retold by Daniel San Souci. Born in Korea, she lives in Natick, Massachusetts.

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 3—A Vietnamese girl feeds caged birds outside a Buddhist temple, beginning a cycle of good deeds continued by the townspeople, including a girl who gives away her red-velvet shoes, before circling back to the birds. Although written to illustrate the Buddhist philosophy of karma, the lesson of this simple story, that helping others is helpful to you, is universal. The muted and warm watercolor-on-board illustrations glow with gold, orange, red, and brown tones, although the girls' unnaturally pink cheeks and lips give them a jarringly clownish look. One of the characters is a monk but the only explicit religious message is found in an author's note that explains karma, nirvana, and samsara (the wheel of life). The arresting cover illustration of a child holding her hands in the air as birds fly into the distance foreshadows the story's conclusion. That dramatic image will immediately engage readers in wondering how the birds will be freed. The slight story serves primarily as a framework for the lesson but the approach is gentle and nonjudgmental.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA
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About this edition

• Publisher: Astra Young Readers
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1590785509
• ISBN 13: 9781590785508
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Neilan Eujin Kim