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Stoneflight
Janie uses her power to put life in the stone animals that ornament New York buildings to escape her parents' quarreling, but when the animals start to turn her into stone she learns that having feelings is the price of remaining human.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
48 people want to read
About the author
Georgess McHargue
39 books3 followersGeorgess McHargue was author of 35 books for children and young adults, some focused on archaeology, myth, and history.
She was born in New York City, the only child of Mac and Georgess (Boomhower) McHargue. She was often referred to as “Little G,’’ and, until her death, “G.’’ At 10 months, she posed for Squibb Cod Liver Oil. She was precocious and a storyteller, even in kindergarten. “The world as I knew it was entirely predicated on words - their use and misuse, their dissection, accumulation and glorification,’’ she wrote in an autobiography for one of her publishers.
Ms. McHargue graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 1963 with a major in history and literature. She went to New York and got a job in publishing with Golden Press for two years and then, “spent three months traveling around Greece and Italy honing her language skills,’’ she wrote.
Back in New York, she worked as trade-publisher for Doubleday & Co. for five years. “I was active in local and national political campaigns, civil rights organizations and a variety of now-defunct peace and feminist groups,’’ she wrote. “I was splashed with yellow paint at a demonstration on lower Fifth Avenue and partially gassed in front of the Washington Monument.’’
She was nominated for a National Book Award for her first book in 1968, “The Beasts of Never,’’ and wrote many reviews over the years for The New York Times Book Review.
Georgess love of horses remained strong throughout her life. In a poem she wrote, “When I Go,’’ Ms. McHargue expresses her love for them.
It begins, “When I go, I will go with the horses/Look for me where the long manes/and the long grass are tossing together’’ and ends, “Do not look for me among the twittering birds./When I go I will go with the horses.’’
She was born in New York City, the only child of Mac and Georgess (Boomhower) McHargue. She was often referred to as “Little G,’’ and, until her death, “G.’’ At 10 months, she posed for Squibb Cod Liver Oil. She was precocious and a storyteller, even in kindergarten. “The world as I knew it was entirely predicated on words - their use and misuse, their dissection, accumulation and glorification,’’ she wrote in an autobiography for one of her publishers.
Ms. McHargue graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 1963 with a major in history and literature. She went to New York and got a job in publishing with Golden Press for two years and then, “spent three months traveling around Greece and Italy honing her language skills,’’ she wrote.
Back in New York, she worked as trade-publisher for Doubleday & Co. for five years. “I was active in local and national political campaigns, civil rights organizations and a variety of now-defunct peace and feminist groups,’’ she wrote. “I was splashed with yellow paint at a demonstration on lower Fifth Avenue and partially gassed in front of the Washington Monument.’’
She was nominated for a National Book Award for her first book in 1968, “The Beasts of Never,’’ and wrote many reviews over the years for The New York Times Book Review.
Georgess love of horses remained strong throughout her life. In a poem she wrote, “When I Go,’’ Ms. McHargue expresses her love for them.
It begins, “When I go, I will go with the horses/Look for me where the long manes/and the long grass are tossing together’’ and ends, “Do not look for me among the twittering birds./When I go I will go with the horses.’’
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 9, 2014
This is a pretty perceptive look at how the possibility of divorce causes confusion for an intelligent little girl, and it offers a specific glimpse into early 1970s New York City -- not to mention a gay supporting character, which is pretty groundbreaking. However, the fantasy aspect of the story is uncomfortably and unconvincingly grafted onto the more realistic elements, the plot is almost nonexistent, and the book suffers because of it.
August 2, 2013
I don't remember when I first read this book, probably years ago, but this is the same copy I've read several times over the years. I love love love this book. Even as an adult, it still holds the same magic for me. I love Janie and her power of being able to "call" the stone creatures into warm flesh. Her Griff, the griffin statue on her building, is her companion and he shows her the city from the air. There's a real sense of danger in the book and Janie has to deal with her parents fighting all the time but she's smart and courageous and a match for any of the dipshit heroines in today's ya literature.
October 26, 2024
Reread this book that I loved as a child; this novel imagines that a young girl can bring stone statues she sees around NYC in the 1970s to life. The backdrop involves fighting between her parents that she worries may bring them to the brink of divorce. The imagery is lovely, as are the passages of the girl flying through the NYC dark nights on the back of a griffon she has brought to life. "Remember," the griffon tells her, "stone is patient." Truly charming...
February 21, 2015
I wish, I wish this book were still in print, because I'd love to review it for Cannonball Read. That said...
It's funny how some things will stick with you from childhood. I didn't specifically remember this book, but I remembered the hot, muggy, isolated summer being suffered by the protagonist, and I remembered the griffin. Oh, how I remembered the griffin. And I remembered being a child and wanting to fly with that griffin and for many of the reasons shared by Ms. McHargue's protagonist (though not all of them; the tensions in my family had nothing to do with divorce.)
Janie lives in New York City, in a walk-up with her parents. But they're not talking much and when they do they're almost always arguing, or she feels like they are. She usually spends the summers with her friends, away from the City, but this year they weren't going to be there. Janie inhabits that lovely liminal space between being a child and a teenager, that space where everything just seems awful beyond what it is from the perspective of an adult.
But I still empathized with her, when my father turned up a box of books in the garage. This one was sitting on the top and I snatched it up. And immediately walked to my bedroom and spent a couple of hours re-reading it to see if I loved it as much as an adult as I did as a child.
It's pretty close. Adult me, of course, takes away different things from the book but the central relationships and Janie herself are strong and believable. And the choice that's put to Janie toward the end of the book, the choice that has to do with her ability to Awaken the stone things around her?
Well, to tell you would be to spoil it all.
If you can find a copy, I think most pre-teens would enjoy it, and some adults definitely will. Though I imagine New York City has changed in the intervening years.
It's funny how some things will stick with you from childhood. I didn't specifically remember this book, but I remembered the hot, muggy, isolated summer being suffered by the protagonist, and I remembered the griffin. Oh, how I remembered the griffin. And I remembered being a child and wanting to fly with that griffin and for many of the reasons shared by Ms. McHargue's protagonist (though not all of them; the tensions in my family had nothing to do with divorce.)
Janie lives in New York City, in a walk-up with her parents. But they're not talking much and when they do they're almost always arguing, or she feels like they are. She usually spends the summers with her friends, away from the City, but this year they weren't going to be there. Janie inhabits that lovely liminal space between being a child and a teenager, that space where everything just seems awful beyond what it is from the perspective of an adult.
But I still empathized with her, when my father turned up a box of books in the garage. This one was sitting on the top and I snatched it up. And immediately walked to my bedroom and spent a couple of hours re-reading it to see if I loved it as much as an adult as I did as a child.
It's pretty close. Adult me, of course, takes away different things from the book but the central relationships and Janie herself are strong and believable. And the choice that's put to Janie toward the end of the book, the choice that has to do with her ability to Awaken the stone things around her?
Well, to tell you would be to spoil it all.
If you can find a copy, I think most pre-teens would enjoy it, and some adults definitely will. Though I imagine New York City has changed in the intervening years.
December 17, 2012
I read this went it first came out ('78 I believe). It was my favorite book as a kid. I have made it a point to read it every year. I read it to my son when he was growing up. It's sweet, simple, but riveting enough for an adult to appreciate. Griff will always be my favorite hero!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews