Synopsis
Neema's and Kate's first day of Wentworth High begins poorly but gets much worse when they find out that their English teacher, the pale Ms. Dallimore, is notorious for challenging essay assignments. Ms. Dallimore assigns an essay with the topic "Who am I?" and gives class 7B a whole six weeks to think and write. Everyone calls Ms. Dallimore the Bride of Dracula. She wants her students to think, and imagine and "learn to fly!" As time passes the cleverest girl in the class is reduced to tears; football jock Blocky Stevenson discovers the pleasure of self examination for the first time and writes "I am a person with feelings"; Kate is sure she is a girl who hates her sister; while school custodian/dictator Mrs. Draynor is sufficiently moved by a student's discarded attempt at the essay to reflect on her own past. For Neema, the extended stay of her Indian great grandmother, Kalpana, complicated the question. Nani has been dreaming of flying: skimming faster and faster, just above the ground. And now she's ready to leave her village in India to visit her family in Australia. At first, things are awkward between Neema and Kalpana. Kalpana doesn't speak English and Neema doesn't speak Hindi, but when they meet "the flying boy", Gull Oliver, they both find something they've been looking for.
Author Biography: Judith Clarke is the author of the story collection Wolf on the Fold, which won the Children's Book of the Year Award from the Children's Book Council of Australia. She has also written many award-winning young adult novels including Night Train, The Lost Day, and Al Capsella and the Watchdogs. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Publishers Weekly
Themes of dreams, the past, family and flight play roles in Clarke's intricate novel, yet the surreal and realistic elements do not interweave as comfortably here as they did in her Starry Nights. On the first day of high school, Neema receives directions from Gull, a kind older boy who looks strangely familiar (seeing him, "words came drifting oddly into her mind: sheep, shepherd, lamb"). He, in turn, believes that Neema is someone special from his past. In an anticlimactic revelation, readers learn that in a "shepherd program" in primary school, she had been his "new little lamb." Meanwhile, Kalpana, Neema's great-grandmother, visits Australia from her native India. In Kalpana's titular recurring dream, she flies just above the ground, believing that if she goes fast enough she will once again see the face of her husband, who died at age 20. The sight of Gull skateboarding past their house convinces Kalpana that he is flying and leads to an epiphany (after sneaking a ride on his skateboard, Kalpana realizes that for an instant Neema's face is "the perfect image" of her husband). The metaphor stretches further in a rather tedious subplot, in which Neema's teacher assigns an essay and likens imaginative writing to "flying" (in a final image, the teacher and her boyfriend soar into the air in his car, "heading for a castle in the mountains, in a far-off foreign land"). Such strains on the narrative detract from the frequently lyrical writing and the convincing bond the author draws between Neema and Kalpana. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.