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Wings
(Hardback, illustrated edition)
Illustrated by Myers, Christopher
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- RRP: $41.50
- $38.47
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- In Stock US
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Are you brave enough to be your true self? Ikarus Jackson is. But it isn't always easy. The people in his neighborhood point at his wings. The kids at school laugh. The teachers call him a distraction. One girl identifies with him, but she is too shy to speak up. Finally, when hi...s classmates' taunts send Ikarus drifting into the sky, the girl sets out in search of him, and so begins her own journey of self-discovery -- leaving both of them transformed.
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ISBN |
9780590033770 |
Publisher |
Scholastic |
Format |
Hardback, illustrated edition |
Alternate Format(s) |
View All (1 other possible title(s) available)
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Availability |
Internationally sourced; ships 10-15 working days
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Full details for this title
Interest Age |
4-8 years |
Reading Age |
4-8 years |
Library of Congress |
Individuality, Flight, Wings |
NBS Text |
Children's Fiction |
ONIX Text |
Children/juvenile |
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Awards, Reviews & Star Ratings
Awards |
Short-listed for North Carolina Children's Book Award (Junior Book) 2002
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NZ Review |
Booklist--May, 2000<br>*Myers, Christopher. Wings. Oct. 2000. 40p. illus. Scholastic, $16.95 (0-590-03377-8).<br>Ages 4-9. Myers retells the myth of Icarus through the<br>story of Ikarus Jackson, the new boy on the block, who can fly above the rooftops and over the crowd. In this con- temporary version, the winged kid nearly falls from the sky, not because he flies too high and dares to go too near the sun, but because jeering kids in the schoolyard and repressive adults don't like his being different and try to break his soaring spirit. Even more than in Black Cat (1999), Myers' beautiful cut-paper collages are eloquent and open. Some urban scenes are like the elemental sil- houettes in cave paintings. Some are rich and elaborate, with fluid aerial perspectives that change the way we see streets and people. Then there are the images of con- straint and attack: the bullies is like a monstrous Hydra with many heads; the schoolyard like a fiery sun; Ikarus' wings caught in jagged barbed wire near the classroom blackboard. In one view, he is struggling to stay in the air above oceans and continents, and in the corner of the page is a photo of derelict rowboats. The narrator of the spare text is a lonely girl, a golden figure in most of the pic- tures, who is reaching for the boy in flight. When she finally finds the courage to stand up to the bullies, she tells Ikarus he's beautiful and gives him the strength to fly free. The resolution is a little neat, but there's so much to talk about here-the multiple meaning of the pictures, the transformation of the myth, the hero outsider. -Hazel Rochman <p>Ikarus Jackson can fly. He swoops above the rooftops and buzzes the gawking passersby, who label him strange. The narrator of this allegory about being your true self doesn't think he's strange; she thinks he's wonderful ( lkarus Jackson, the fly boy, came to my school last Thursday. His long, strong, proud wings followed wherever he went'). To say Ikarus attracts a |
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Author's Bio
The son of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers, award-winning illustrator Christopher Myers credits his appreciation of the importance of images to observing the objects and photographs his parents would bring home from auctions and flea markets: little histories; other people's memories that get left behind. His own family images have had quite an impact, as well - as in a black-and-white photograph of his grandfather with a telling smile on his face. He was a storyteller. His thick, dark, calloused hands told stories. My father tells stories. I tell stories. I'm fascinated with work, what work is, who does work, how much our identities are wrapped up in what we do with our hands. Shoeshine boy, ditchdigger, painter. My grandfather laughed at my father's hands because they were too soft. Still I think he was proud of the fact that my father didn't have to work with his back. This is progress. Myers has made his career working with his hands in yet another way, creating his own images in collage, photos, woodcuts, and other artistic media. A graduate of Brown University, he has participated in the exclusive Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Studio Program. Myers began his children's book career doing research to help his father, and went on to illustrate the elder Myers' Shadow of the Red Moon. In 1998, the two collaborated on Harlem, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Myers' solo effort, Black Cat, was also a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. In addition to his fine art and illustrative work, Christopher Myers is a clothing designer. He makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.
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