Taking Wing

Taking Wing

Although Nancy Price Graff's Taking Wing is set during the
beginning of World War II, the themes could not be more timely.
There's the temporary breaking apart of a family when a parent must
serve overseas. There's the learning to care for and then give up
something wild and beautiful. And there's the cruelty of a society
that ostracizes those who are different.
Gus, 13, is staying with his grandparents in Vermont. His
father is far from their Boston home training for a war overseas. His
mother is recovering from tuberculosis at a sanitarium. To Gus his
beloved family seems heartbreakingly fragile. He wonders if they will
ever be together again.
When his grandfather runs over a nesting duck with his tractor,
leaving her eggs motherless, Gus decides he will raise them. His
grandparents warn him about the time consuming work involved. Still
some stuff he has to learn the hard way, like what it feels like to
shoot a raccoon that has already killed one duckling and is certain to
return for the rest.
Then there's Gus' new friend Louise Lavictoire, the daughter of
a very impoverished family. The day he meets her his grandmother
warns him, "Those Quebecers (folks who move from Quebec) are all pope-
worshipping Catholics with more mouths to feed than they can fill...it
wouldn't surprise me if a goodly number of those children were born
idiots. When I was a child, everyone knew that the Quebecer families
who roamed all over the countryside were thieves and beggers.". The
town shares her beliefs, shunning the clan, leaving them to rely on
their almost nonexistent resources. But Gus can see that Louise is
bright and capable and deserving of better.
Gus is a good kid struggling to make sense of a world that, in
his mind, has gone off kilter and to do the right thing under very
confusing circumstances. His coming-of-age story is funny, poignant,
and a genuinely good read.
On a personal note, I'm toward the end of day 12 in my housecleaning
campaign. Every day I see improvement. I am winning in the war
against fleas as evidenced by the fact that Joey cat isn't getting all
chewed up anymore.
A great big shout out goes out to the folks at Crossroads who work
valiently to help folks get what they need to survive in a world where
it's getting increasingly hard to do so.
Julia Emily Hathaway



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