"Birdwing"

I did get a little reading of my own done while camping in the mountains of Utah. I finished a young adult book entitled Birdwing by Rafe Martin. It is a continuation of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale "The Six Swans," in which six brothers are turned into swans by the evil enchantress who becomes their father's new wife. Their little sister must not speak or laugh for 6 years while she creates shirts for them made out of nettles; these shirts will turn them into humans. When the six years pass, the brothers come back and she places the shirts on them, but she has not had time to finish the last, the littlest shirt. The brothers become human again, but the youngest brother has a swan's wing in place of his arm where his one sleeve was not finished. This is his story.

Rafe Martin writes Birdwing with beauty and poetry. I enjoyed the story of Ardwin (Birdwing) and how he discovers that a curse can be a gift. In the Q&A at the end of the book, they ask the author what his "wing" is. You can ask yourself if you have something you formerly considered a curse and now consider a gift or a blessing. The author answered that his imagination used to get him in trouble, and now it is how he earns his living. If you enjoy this story or fantasy literature, you might enjoy a book we read for Book Club a few years ago, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. She actually wrote a trilogy about this fairy tale, and I (surprisingly) enjoyed them very much.