King of the Sky by Nicola Davies illustrated by Laura Carlin

"King of the sky would go to Rome by train, then race back a thousand miles and more!"

Blurb: Starting a new life in a new country, a young boy feels lost and alone - until he makes friends with an old many who keeps racing pigeons. Together they pin their hopes on a race across Europe and the special bird they believe can win it: King of the Sky (Re Del Cielo).

June 13th is Pigeon Appreciation Day and my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything has been gathering books from her extensive and rich library collection ready for a display. Take a look at this Pinterest collection of pigeon books. 

King of the Sky was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2018. 

This touching, quiet tale about a boy who is a long way from home is full of the atmosphere of a dusty, rainy ex-coal-mining town, lit with accents of yellow hope. Davies considers the strangeness of new places, especially their smells, and the simple acts that can make us feel part of a new community. Book Trust

This book is outstanding in every way. Deeply emotive hand-lettered text, joins with delicate soft-coloured fine illustrations by multi-award winning Laura Carlin, to make this a highly collectable children’s book. Filled with beauty and strong messages, there is nothing to fault here. It’s one of those books that draw a sigh of utter satisfaction from the reader as it is pressed to their chest. Kids' Book Review

Carlin’s smudgy, near-transparent mixed-media illustrations, depicting soot and sun and shadow, capture the essences of the old and new homelands, and a number of wordless spreads emphasize the differences, and distances, between them. Quiet, tender, and profound, this window into immigration offers an intimate understanding of just what it means to come home. Horn Book

With a group of older students you could compare the way Laura Carlin depicts the coal mining town in this book with the work of Sydney Smith in his book Town is by the Sea. 

The word choices in this book are truly special:

"Little houses huddled on the humpbacked hills. Chimneys smoked and metal towers clanked."

"Mr Evans' face was crumpled and he could hardly walk but when his birds flew he smile like springtime."

"Its head was whiter than a splash of milk, its eye blazed fire."

Last week I talked about The Remarkable Pigeon by Dorien Brouwers and in that post I mentioned King of the Sky which I had read many years ago in the wonderful city library in Austin Texas so I was pleased to be able to borrow this from a library this week. Here are some varies of pigeons:

When you look inside this book the end papers are sure to make you gasp! They echo the chart above and are filled with pigeons of every colour.