Together they pin their hopes on a race across Europe and the special bird they believe can win it: King of the Sky. A brilliant book for exploring and understanding how immigrants and refugees might feel in a new country, and how we can help them to find their place. Nicola Davies’ beautiful story – an immigrant’s tale with a powerful resonance in our troubled times – is illustrated by an artist who makes the world anew with every picture. Before entering into a commitment of the eagle, the male bird tests the commitment level of the female bird, and also female bird tests the commitment level of the male bird.

This is an interesting and very relevant book but I'm not sure if it's one children will enjoy as much as adults. Steered north and west, finding his direction from the sun and the force that guides a compass needle. Together they pin their dreams on a race across Euorpe and the special bird they hope can win it: King of the Sky. Peter, a young Italian boy and his family emigrate to a remote, Welsh mining town, and he finds himself feeling displaced and out of alignment with his new home. This will work for group readings, but will be much more special for one-on-one sharing, where readers can absorb the language and pore over the detailed, nuanced pictures.The birds link the boy with home - a connection that deepens when the old man gives him a pigeon to hold. What made this book so amazing for me was the amazingly language that Davies used, which made the book even more emotional. Her first book with Candlewick Press, BIG BLUE WHALE, was hailed by American Bookseller as an "artfully composed study" offering "language exactly appropriate for four- to seven-year-olds and precisely the right amount of information. And indeed she did--as part of a pair of scientific expeditions, one to Newfoundland at the age of eighteen and another to the Indian Ocean a year later. About the Author: Graduating with a degree in zoology, Nicola once worked as a presenter on the television programme The Really Wild Show.

Biography: Nicola Davies is an award-winning author whose many books for children include A First Book of Nature, Ice Bear, Big Blue Whale, Dolphin Baby, Bat Loves the Night and the Silver Street Farm series. Some of my personal favourite lines include 'little houses huddled on the humpbacked hills,' and 'finding his direction from the sun and the force that guides a compass needle.It is only when he makes an unlikely friend, an old man who lets him fly one of his pigeons in a race, that he learns how he can belong. There’s much here to resonate with current world events and it’s one of the most visually stunning books of the year.

The book's message of loneliness and friendship is there for everyone, but the book also deals with alienation, immigration, and the decline of former industrial-centered towns (mining in this case). When King of the Sky is entered in a race from Rome to Wales, the question of his success or failure ends up holding great significance. But what do freedom and belonging mean in an age when immigration — that is, institutionalized otherness, divisiveness, and exclusion — is remapping humanity’s geopolitical and emotional landscape?In a story full of hope against adversity, King of the Sky tells how flying a homing pigeon helps a young boy comes to terms with his life in a strange country far, far from home. Quiet, tender, and profound, this window into immigration offers an intimate understanding of just what it means to come home. In fact, his ensuing hope and salvation come not from new friends at school, but from a friendship with an elderly man and his hobby of pigeon racing. Being far away from the only place he knew, he felt incredibly lonely, he felt that he didn’t belong in the UK. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

He feels totally out of place, alone in a strange place, until he strikes up a relationship with Mr Evans, the elderly gentleman who keeps pigeons next door. Most of the world doesn’t have to think twice when asked where they’re from or where home is; some children have to think harder about the answer. The writing in the book (by author Nicola Davies) is simple yet beautiful and evocative - the opening line 'It rained and rained and rained' - along with the powerful illustration of grey, dull, miserable landscape - perfectly captures the boy's sense of alienation - as he goes on to say - 'All of it told me this is not where you belong'. What it is to be new; to an environment, language, weather, people- so that you feel closed out and long for ‘home.But a kind old neighbour who owns racing pigeons becomes friends with the boy and gives him a pigeon of his own, one he names ‘Re Del Cielo’ (King of the Sky). Perhaps you’re wondering where all the fluffy bunnies and bears are in this week’s Good to Read recommendation? It's just my personal opinion but this book wouldn't have stood out for me to read when I was younger. Mr Evans chose one of his pigeons, and told the little boy that it was going to be a champion racer. The story is told by the boy, an Italian immigrant who has recently moved to a mining town in the UK.