MIDDLE GRADE FICTION REVIEW & AUTHOR GUEST POST : Kestrel Takes Flight by Joy McCullough
ABOUT THE BOOK
A kestrel
is the smallest
bird of prey
in North America.
Kestrel doesn’t feel much like the fierce bird for which she is named. Not after being rushed away from her grandfather’s strict church community to the wilds of Montana. Her mother has gotten a job at a conservation institute, where she’ll work with a special breed of dog to help make interactions between humans and bears safer.
At first, Kes is terrified of the dogs and angry at her mother for ripping her from the only world she’s known. But with some distance from her grandfather, she starts to understand how badly his bark hurt. In this new terrain, can Kestrel discover a safe place to spread her wings and soar?
About the author: Joy McCullough is a playwright and the New York Times bestselling author of many books for children and young adults, including Blood Water Paint, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. Her middle grade novels include A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Across the Pond, Not Starring Zadie Louise, Code Red, and Basil & Dahlia. She lives with her family in the Seattle area. Visit her at joymccullough.com.
AUTHOR GUEST POST
Kestrel Takes Flight began with unsold picture book about all the different kinds of penguins. While researching that book, I learned about fairy penguins, the smallest species of penguin, which live in Australia, where they are endangered by an invasive species of fox, but areprotected from those foxes by enormous white livestock guardian dogs called Maremmas, whoare trained specially for that purpose. Of course I immediately thought this had the makings of an excellent middle grade novel. But I wasn't the only one.
Often when a book is announced with a very similar premise to what one is working on, an agent or editor will soothe the author, assuring them it's all in the execution and of course their book will be different. But when a middle grade novel was announced with the exact same premise as the one I was working on - an American girl moving to Australia because her mom had gotten a job helping to train the Maremma dogs protecting the fairy penguins...I knew it was just too close.
At first I thought it had all been wasted. But nothing is ever wasted in this process. After setting the manuscript aside for a while, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kestrel. I realized that while fairy penguins and foxes and angelic bodyguard dogs were of course magical, the real heart of the story was the girl and her mother, escaping from an emotionally abusive home, and learning what love and family should really feel like.
So I did some research on other kinds of conservation dogs and I learned about Karelian bear dogs, originally used in Russia for bear hunting, and a woman in Montana who has developed a way of training these dogs to reduce human-bear encounters. And as it turned out, my mother-daughter story worked just as well in Montana!
If you search "Wind River Bear Institute" and "public library" you can watch a wonderful library presentation done by the real woman who trains the dogs on the work they do. One small tidbit - in the hundreds of encounters where Karelian bear dogs have been used to scare problem bears away from human-inhabited areas, not a single bear, dog, or human has ever been harmed!
REVIEW
Kestrel, named after a bird of prey, and her mother board a plane to travel to Montana. While her mother wrestles with her fear of flying, Kestrel wonders why they left in the middle of the night without telling her grandfather. As the reader hears about Kestrel's grandpa, it becomes clear why her mother took her away in the middle of the night. Having had her whole life dictated by her grandfather's strict religious (and other) beliefs, Kestrel's never done a lot of things. She's only gone to a county fair because her mother snuck her out while her grandfather was absent. Kestrel struggles to adjust to her new living situation in Montana. She's not used to having a bit of freedom to stretch her wings.
As Kestrel adapts to her new circumstances and starts to befriend and even assist those around her, she starts to appreciate her newfound freedom. But will it be enough when her grandfather comes looking to reclaim her? McCullough's free verse allows the story to flow directly from Kestrel's own mouth. The emotions are tangible, first anger and frustration, then hesitation as she doesn't know how to guide her own actions at first, and finally appreciation for her new found residence which feels more like a home than her grandfather's house. The storyline around the dogs who are trained to scare away bears adds an interesting element to the plot, especially because of Kestrel's fear of dogs. The secondary characters, other than the grandfather, provide a striking contrast to the people Kestrel's spent time around before her arrival in Montana. And the puppies, as one might expect, provide a lighter, sweet touch to the story of Kestrel spreading her wings and leaving the nest so to speak. A tender story of awakening and growth as well as facing the realities of what her life used to be, Kestrel Takes Flight provides a great read for young readers. Highly recommended.
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