Birdwing

Good quality paperback version of a book I dearly love and would recommend to any adult or child for some profound, delightful reading.

A tender, fast moving fairy tale with just the right doses of coming-of-age angst, magic, betrayal, romance and triumph. I loved it! I wish the author would have delved a little deeper into the relationships, and it seemed like the resolution happened a bit too fast and easily, but overall this is a FANTASTIC read with many twists and turns. Wonderful and rare.

This story is a story that many teens cans relate to.

Very good

I’ve read only two novels that deal with the story of the Grimm fairy tale of the Swan Brothers and this one is just as memorable as the other. It also incorporates the story of the Goose Girl and contains hints of the Atalanta and Daedalus myths.Thenovel deals deftly with the theme of transformation, enchantment, witches, wizards, conniving kings, princesses in disguise, talking animals and coincidences that simply boggle the mind. The author paints glorious pictures of life on the road and how even roving princes and princesses might not settle for a happily ever after that involves being shut up in a castle.The old world is yielding to the new and the clash of the two is borne out almost as a battle of the sexes. When men strive to wield power, war and bloodshed spill onto the land. Perhaps female strength calls for something gentler…however, with old magic in the air, violence simply comes from nature rather than human ingenuity, as both Ardwin and Alene learn.There are genuine moments of humor, from a quartet of would-be bandits and a woman who makes Mrs. Malaprop sound like a Rhodes scholar. All in all, this is one of the more inventive re-workings of Grimm tales and one well worth placing in personal libraries.

This was 100% good. It's a middle-grade retelling of the six swans tale (I keep calling it Seven Swans because of that Sufjan Stevens song lol) from the point of view of the youngest brother who is left with a bird wing because his sister didn't finish his shirt in time.I don't have a lot to say about this book, because I just loved it. It was refreshing and full of feels and adventure and fairy tale vibes! I loved the dynamic between the brother and his sister and the tension caused by the curse she lived through and did her best to lift off her brothers. The main character, Ardwin is definitely a headstrong brat, but also someone who is bullied and shunned by many of those around him. He goes through some great growth throughout the story.It's just an awesome read - I finished it in 2 days and it's one I definitely want to re-read someday. Certainly, it would be on a 'top whatever' list for fairy tale retellings from me. If you like MG, fairytale retellings and fantasy, definitely pick this up.

A red flag went up when I read the first sentence of Rafe Martin's fairy tale retelling, which went, "Rain pelted heavily against the narrow, glazed window."There it is: a clunky adverb and imagery that doesn't actually accomplish anything. However, I persuaded myself that I was being overly picky, and because I was in a waiting room with nothing else to read, I plodded through the next 300 pages before admitting defeat to my first impression."The Wild Swans" is one of my favorite fairy tales. Rather than a tidy happily-ever-after ending, it leaves one character with a swan's wing for the rest of his life. Birdwing joins two other disappointing retellings (Nicholas Stuart Gray's  The Seventh Swan  and Ursula Synge's  Swans Wing (Ace Fantasy Book) , which commits even worse offenses against adverbs.Picking up where Grimm left off, Rafe Martin tells the angst-ridden tale of Ardwin Birdwing, the youngest prince. Possessing vivid memories of his life as a swan and the ability to speak to animals, Ardwin is caught between two worlds, neither of which he can wholly belong to. Much teenage angst ensues. But when he learns that his father is planning to sever his wing and replace it with a mechanical arm, he flees, seeking the wild swans of his past. Of course, nothing turns out quite the way he expected. On his journey, Ardwin meets Belarius, a Da Vinci-like inventor, a goose girl who is more than she seems, the enchantress who turned him into a swan in the first place, and a talking Horse, who is the only remotely memorable character in the book. Probably because he reminds me of C. S. Lewis's talking horses.The integration of "The Goose Girl" into Ardwin's story strikes me as unnecessary, but Birdwing's primary faults lie in its wooden characters, stilted dialogue, and clunky psychology. Neither Ardwin, whose angst quickly becomes tiresome, nor any of the other characters emerges as a distinct or particularly likable entity -- again, with the possible exception of the horse.Fortunately, alternatives exist for people who are not stuck in waiting rooms. Patrice Kindl's spunky and irreverent Goose Girl is an excellent antidote to Martin's earnest but earthbound fairy tale retelling, and Heather Tomlinson's Swan Maiden features a much more sympathetic teenage protagonist caught between worlds. Like Martin's titular character, Birdwing has potential but never takes flight.

You may know the tale of the six brothers turned into swans by an evil stepmother and how only five of them fully return to their human form when the curse is lifted. The sixth and youngest brother is left with a wing where one of his arms should be. This is the story of that brother. On one level, it's a story of how a boy comes to manhood through a series of adventures. On another, it's an exploration of disability and difference-blessing or curse ? or both ? It is beautifully and sensitively written, very atmospheric, and with wonderful characters. There's a wizard, two automatons, a goose-girl, a horse with attitude, also a woman who is an owl and may also be a bear. If this sounds too much, I can only say that Rafe Martin handles it all superbly. It's a spellbinding read and I feel the richer for it.