Wings

by Carol Chataway, Declan Lee

When Saffy's parents leave her with Aunt Joesa, she is unimpressed to say the least. However, when Aunt Joesa begins to undergo a life altering transformation, Saffy must learn some important lessons about the nature of change.

32 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2004

Reviews

[SBC · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite odd for a children's picture book. The book is the story of how Saffron is sent to stay with her cousin. Their fruitarian and vegetarian diet seems to be the impetus for first her cousin, and then Saffron's, transformation into human-sized butterflies. She's a teenager and her parents don't care about her, they're only interested in each other and their careers as entomologists who like to sight and pin down bugs. She doesn't want to go stay with her cousin as she thinks she's odd. She's very tall and she tells Saffron she's a fruitarian (although later she eats vegetables, and paper too). She always wears a special green dress and one day says she's going to change, stuffs herself for days then hangs from the ceiling in a cocoon that is made of (women's?) magazines. Saffron signs herself out of school and decides to live with her aunt instead of her parents, then at the end we learn that she too has become a butterfly. Sadly, I didn't like the narrator (Saffron's) voice, attitude, or the book in general, including the pictures.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing book. I requested this book from my library because I had read another book that Declan Lee has illustrated (The Wrong Thing), and I'd enjoyed his work. I'd never heard of this book, or the author, and peering at the cover image it was difficult to imagine what kind of story it would be. Yes it's a picture book, but pitched for older primary school children. Here a sassy, sarcastic, ""whatever"" kind of teenager is effectively orphaned by her bizarrely amorous entomologist parents when they go to Madagascar for a convention. So Saffy is sent to stay with her rather odd, fruitarian aunt Joesa. Joesa is rendered in a Marge Simpsonesque kind of way- green sheath that she wears continually, but the hair piled up on her head is black, and not blue. Saffy surprises herself and takes to life with her aunt, and they develop a strange bond, and their lives entwine and change for ever. The illustrations are again powerful, surreal really, but with an eye motif that is probably a bit too much. Still, it makes me want to read more Carol Chataway, the back cover blurb says that she was doing an honours in creative writing. That probably shows here somewhat. Interesting when I checked out what else she had written, I came across Edwina Sparrow, Girl of Destiny, where Edwina's mother seems a little mad, and moves from a cabbage diet to a fruitarian one. I don't know how much mileage there is in fruitarian stories really, but will be interested to take a look at that book, given the vibe of this one.