Wild Wings

This is a great story! Wild Wings is set in Scotland, and there is a little about Scotland that people from other countries may not know, but most of the special Scottish info you may want to discover is not given. This is NOT where the educational value comes in. The book manages to slip in little facts about ospreys and African culture during the story. Throughout the story there is an environmental message. The osprey which Callum and Iona discover is an endangered animal, and there is a lot about why ospreys need to be kept safe. Also, when Callum makes contact with an African girl, and discovers that, due to the insufficient medical care in her village, she is going to have her leg amputated, there is a lot about helping people you don't know well when Callum's town raises money so she can come to Britain and get medical care. There are some good role models in this story, but they are "role models" mostly in the environmental sense. They are regular kids who act badly sometimes in other ways, but Calluma and Iona really care about the ospreys. I rated this book "pause" for age nine instead of "on" because, while I feel that most nine year olds would be fine with Wild Wings, more sensitive kids may not. One of the main important characters dies halfway through the book, causing even more stress when one of the ospreys is suspected to have died. Parents should know that the osprey does not, in fact, die, but does get fairly bedraggled. This book has appeal to both boys and girls, there being more boys than girls, but all the girls are very important to the plot, and are fun, spunky, believable characters.