Georgia Hansen can fly. All the women in her family can. They fly at night, when the world sleeps, for no one must discover their secret. Georgia will soon turn 16 and make her first solo flight, taking up her birthright with a special ceremony to mark the occasion. But her anticipation is disrupted with the arrival of her rebellious Aunt Carmen. Banished from the family years before for breaking the strict code of flying enforced by Georgia's grandmother, this unknown aunt reveals the true price of her family's gift, for the Hansen rules of flying are strict and unforgiving.
In this powerful coming-of-age novel, Georgia must weigh the cost of her heritage against her passion for flight.
School Library Journal
Despite its marvelous premise, the book has some flaws. The first-person narrative restricts how much readers know about the characters. Georgia's grandmother is a caricature of a domineering matriarch and it's difficult to understand her daughters' motivations and behavior..... Too many strands of the story are left unanswered, making it tough to sustain a suspension of disbelief. Still, Murphy is a writer to watch and there will surely be teenage girls who will enjoy her first novel. Grades 5-9.
Publisher's Weekly
Like Jane Langton's Georgie Hall in The Fledgling, the narrator of Murphy's enchanting first novel is learning to fly...... Murphy seamlessly links the metaphor of flying with Georgia's rite of passage. An auspicious debut. Ages 12-up.
Kirkus Reviews
The writing is full of apt and innovative images (e.g., Beulah the old Volvo wagon that is like a Southern woman, She just has weight and composure). The beauty and the danger of flight are skillfully imagined. While some readers may reprove the almost misandristic absence of men, for readers who suspend disbelief, the richly developed, seclusive fantasy world of the Hansen women with its own history, rituals, and mores will fascinate, and the conclusion, with the promise of Georgia's safe landing, will satisfy. (Fiction. 10-14)
A world-wide sensation, this first book of The Otori Trilogy is a brilliantly imagined, wholly seductive tale of war, passion, and intrigue, evoking the spirit of medieval Japan.
This is one of 3 readalike suggestions for Night Flying. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
School Library Journal
