Birdwing

by Rafe Martin, Dan Bellm

Overview

A boy marked by physical difference--one arm is an enchanted wing--finds his strength and purpose in this stirring fantasy. A Washington Post Best Kids Book of 2005 and Book Sense Winter Pick.

Once upon a time, a girl rescued her seven brothers from a spell that had turned them into swans. But one boy, Ardwin, was left with the scar of the spell's last gasp: one arm remained a wing. And while Ardwin yearned to find a place in his father's kingdom, the wing whispered to him of open sky and rushing wind. Marked by difference, Ardwin sets out to discover who he is: bird or boy, crippled or sound, cursed or blessed. But followed by the cold eye of a sorceress and with war rumbling at his kingdom's borders, Ardwin's path may lead him not to enlightenment, but into unimaginable danger.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780439211680
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.02(w) x 7.06(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	12 Years

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-10-This fantasy continues the Grimms' tale of The Six Swans, in which six brothers are turned into swans. Through the great sacrifice of their sister, the spell is broken, but the youngest is left with a swan's wing. Ardwin is torn between his life as a prince and his yearning to take to the skies and rejoin his avian companions. Believing his father will force him to replace his wing with a mechanical arm and marry a rival king's daughter, he flees. His friends Stephen and Skye (on whom he has a secret crush) accompany him. Feeling betrayed after finding them together as a couple, Ardwin goes his own way, hoping that by switching horses with Stephen, he'll elude his father's pursuers. His adventures have only begun as he seeks out the swans he once knew, is attacked by a lion, and rescued by the same wizard who designed the mechanical arm. He also meets the wizard's automatons, his enchantress stepmother, an unusual horse, and a goose girl who is not who she thinks she is. In true fairy-tale fashion, all's well in the end and Ardwin wisely realizes that his wing is a blessing, not a curse. Like all fairy tales, there are lots of plot twists and turns and perhaps that contributes to the sometimes meandering narrative. Overall, this is a well-realized, but unexceptional story.-Sharon Rawlins, NJ Library for the Blind and Handicapped, Trenton Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

An emotive fairytale extension thoughtfully explores the life of Ardwin, a prince with a swan's wing instead of a left arm. As in Grimm, Ardwin's the youngest of six brothers who spent years living as a swan. Is his remaining wing a blessing or a curse? It gives him emotional stirrings of wildness, but he's called a freak. His father, the king, receives an offer from another king: a truce between realms and a princess for Ardwin to marry-if Ardwin cuts off his wing in favor of a magical prosthetic arm. Troubled, unwilling to be forced, Ardwin sneaks away on a quest to find the wild swans he used to know. The journey holds some surprises. The story's ending is disquietingly random and out-of-the-blue, but that doesn't overshadow the memorable images created along the way as Martin touchingly weaves together fairy tale, the wildness of animals and lyrical characterization. (Fantasy. YA)

Kirkus Reviews