Athan is living in very impoverished circumstances. We don't know the date but it feels like the late 19th Century. Suspicion and superstition abound. Athan has a disabled sister. His grandmother thinks the real Beatty has been kidnapped and that the child in their house is a changeling. This is nonsense but it is dangerous nonsense.
Athan is a boy of science. He has been working for a scientist called Mr Chen but everyone around Athan is suspicious of this foreigner. What they don't know is that Mr Chen has been designing a flying machine. Mr Chen is close to completion when a murderer strikes. Mr Chen is dead but Athan has seen the plans and he knows he can build a machine that will fly and better yet a machine that can win the huge reward on offer. But the murderer is still on the loose and worse he has befriended Athan's mother.
This is an action packed story. I loved the way Fleur Hitchcock only gives us fragments of information and as a reader we are expected to 'join the dots'. This is also a highly atmospheric story. Here is a perfect example when Athan looks for the flying machine plans which are hidden in an outside latrine:
"The smell almost makes me vomit, but I gulp it back and breathe thinly through my mouth ... With my chest bare, I stretch my arm down the privy pit and my head gets closer and closer to the seat, and the stench. My fingers brush the cold slimy sides of the pit before I can feel something different."
Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advanced reader copy of The Boy who Flew which was published in March this year.
I would pair this with the Barnaby Grimes series by Paul Stewart. Athan does most of his thinking on the rooftops of the city just like those wonderful tick tock lads in the Barnaby Crimes series. Steam Punk fans will love this book. I don't often talk about age appropriateness of a text but there are some quite violent scenes in this book and (spoiler) a character does die in awful circumstances. The publisher lists this as suitable for 9-12 but I think 11+ would be a better guide. Some of my labels might give you further ideas about this book.
Here are some review extracts. You can click the links for more plot details:
a thrilling, murderous tale set among the steep rooftops and slippery characters of Athan's intricately imagined world. Love Reading 4 Kids
This story is set on the gritty, grimy streets and rickety snow-covered rooftops of the big city where life is cheap and danger lurks around every corner. Library Girl and Book Boy
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