King of the Sky

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 8, 2017

Review

A beautiful, simple immigrant story about a boy looking for a home. He has come to a foreign land (America) where the smells and surroundings are different and the language is new and challenging. He finds a reminder of home (Italy) in Mr. Evans and his carrier pigeons; the birds could have been the same as those in St. Peter's Square in Rome and the boy feels a connection to these creatures that can find their way home no matter where they are released. Mr. Evans's health is failing so he entrusts his pigeons to the boy and so the boy enters his favorite pigeon, the one that he names Re Del Cielo, King of the Sky, into the longest race, one covering 1200 miles. As doubt fills the boy's mind and heart, Mr. Evans reminds him that his pigeon is a champion and, sure enough, the pigeon makes its way home to the waiting arms of the boy, and the boy, too, realizes that he has found a home. A muted, smokey palette captures the isolation and darkness of a foreign city around the time of early industrialization; the smoke from the factory smokestacks creates a haze that obscures the remembered sunlight of a homeland. Through one story, that of the carrier pigeons, another story emerges, that of looking for new promise and a place to call home. A lovely addition to any library collection.

Overall Book Score: very good