Product Description

A young girl separated from her family takes comfort in her care for an injured seagull; the new boy faces up to the class bully and his gang; a grieving mother takes in a "lost girl", mute from a traumatic event in her past; an "ordinary" boy has a magical meeting in the pages of a book...Full of intriguing encounters, memorable characters and distinctive narrative voices, these stories are as colourful as their Caribbean setting. In language that soars like Icarus in full flight, Curdella Forbes establishes herself as a new children's writer of great poise and insight.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1016213 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

About the Author
Curdella Forbes grew up in a small village in rural Jamaica, where there was a strong oral storytelling tradition. She says, "From very early on I had stories coming out of my ears, long before I was old enough to discover them in books." Now a teacher of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, Curdella lives in Kingston with her niece and an itinerant cat named The Wild One. She says of Flying With Icarus, "It is a book about how the everyday world is full of magical things, but you have to have special eyes to see them. Children usually do."

Customer Reviews

Everyone should buy this book ...
This is Curdella Forbes' first book for children, and she's the most exciting new author that I've come across for years - and I truly mean that. Hers is a completely different voice from any that you've read before; she swoops from the lyrical to the most streetwise of language with a wonderful ease and confidence. The seven stories are set in the Caribbean (the author grew up in a small village in Jamaica), but the themes - misunderstanding, compassion, grief, joy, loneliness, bullying - are universal. There is a wonderful celebration of life, a profound understanding of the extraordinary (and often bizarre) strengths and weaknesses of human beings both large and small, and a real passion in the writing that leaves your head spinning with images and ideas and emotions that will stay with you for a long long time.

Wonderful
Warm, painful, funny, angry; written with so much love and integrity, it makes you ache, this wonderful collection of short stories should be in every library in the land. Curdella Forbes writes about her characters in language so fresh and alive, she achieves that rare writer's miracle of making us see the world with new eyes. My favourites are SLATER MINNIFIE AND THE BEAT BOY MACHINE, which explores the relationship between a fat boy and a school bully. And DREAD MILDRED, about an uncomfortably upright aunt seen through the eyes of her resentful niece. ("Mildred doesn't really smile. She grimaces. Like her face has constipation.")