Flight of a Starling

by Lisa Heathfield

Overview

Best friends and sisters Lo and Rita have spent their lives flying through the air on the trapeze under the lights in the big top. The nomadic circus community is a close-knit family, but those bonds are threatened as secrets and lies surface and Lo finds forbidden love with a boy from outside the circus. The two sisters find themselves at odds with each other for the first time as they both search for love and test the limits of family loyalty. Lo must face up to a family member's deception and navigate her newfound love. Will she manage to land on her feet?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541526112
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lisa Heathfield is an award-winning author and a former high school English teacher. She lives with her family in Brighton, England.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] gem of a novel, one that is sure to be savored."—starred, Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Winter 2018

Gr 9 Up—This novel about a circus family in the U.K. deals with betrayal and loyalty and the harsh, yet often rewarding, aspects of circus life. Lo and Rita have only known the circus because their family has been involved for generations. Rita is content with their traveling lifestyle and the daring tricks that they play under the round top, but her sister Lo wonders what it would be like to settle down. It's understood that romantic relationships stay within the bounds of the circus, and Rita has an on-again, off-again crush within their tight-knit group. When Lo meets a "flattie" named Dean, she begins a forbidden romance that threatens to endanger their lifestyle. Lo is also carrying around the secret of her mother's infidelity, and though she can scarcely handle all of her new pressures, she is legitimately happy with Dean. The sisterly relationship is portrayed effectively and the chapters change viewpoints between the two girls. Emotions in the novel are ultra heightened, but all of the characters are realistically rendered. The tragic ending is foretold from the very beginning, although that doesn't make it any less impactful when everything finally unravels. VERDICT A solid purchase; give this to fans of Jennifer Niven and Stephanie Garber.—Gretchen Hardin, Sterling Municipal Library, Baytown, TX

School Library Journal

★ 2018-10-23

As a feathered and sequined changeling, Lo holds circus audiences spellbound, forgetting that for those who venture outside the big top, there is no safety net.

Sheltered in their vans, protected by tradition, sisters Lo and Rita journey through the countryside in modern-day England, performing increasingly dangerous trapeze feats and drawing crowds to their circus tent. The secure world of the showman travelers hinges on isolation from "flatties," devotion to kin, and a steadfast commitment to a wandering way of life that is generations old. However, the tightknit circus community unravels when Lo falls in love with a boy from the outside and family secrets can no longer remain hidden. Lo's tragic end is apparent in the opening pages, but alternating chapters told in the first-person voices of the sisters unveil the events that bring about her ultimate fall. With delicate language, Heathfield (Paper Butterflies, 2017, etc.) parallels the illusions that create circus magic with hints at sexual identity, a mother's betrayal, and a grandfather's grief, tenderly painting a world clinging to its storied past. Prejudices on both sides of the big top add another thoughtful layer to this gem of a novel, one that is sure to be savored. Characters readers will miss long after the book is closed combine tender innocence and fierce loyalty. Limited physical descriptions make ethnicities difficult to determine.

Like a beautiful starling, Lo is too fragile on her own for the harsh life of the flat world. (Fiction. 14-adult)

Kirkus Reviews