Swordbird

Swordbird

By Nancy Yi Fan

2 ratings 2 reviews 3 followers
Interest LevelReading LevelReading A-ZATOSWord Count
Grades 4 - 8Grades 3 - 5n/a529840

The blue jays and cardinals of Stone-Run Forest have turned against each other. According to legend, only Swordbird, son of the Great Spirit, has the power to conquer evil and restore peace to the land. But is he real or just a myth? Can Swordbird arrive in time to save the forest . . . or will it be too late?

Twelve-year-old author Nancy Yi Fan has woven a captivating tale about the birds of Stone-Run Forest and the heroism, courage, and resourcefulness in their quest for peace.

Publisher: HarperCollins
Published on 2/1/2008
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 256

Book Reviews (4)

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This book is a story about a blue jay, and a cardinal trying to stop an evil falcon, and his book of Herisy from enslaving the robins and taking over the forest. They go on an epic quest to bring back Swordbird so he can help them save the forest. In the end this book terms out nicely. I was impressed with Nancy being so young I am writing a book now and some day hope to get it published I do not expect it to be this good but I do hope that some day it will even be competed to her book anyhow I am exited to read the sequel.

To be honest, although this book was sweet and original, I would not call myself a great fan. It is inspiring that a twelve year old or eleven year old girl would be able to write at the level that she does, and publish a book. However, I noticed many flaws in the writing. I myself am a writer, and am currently editing a book- not that I expect that to ever be very successful, as there I should never any guarantee of that- and am noticing flaws in my own writing as well as hers. The story is rather simple- which is just fine. However, the characters never seemed to differ from each other. Aska’s supposedly courageous character was sort of ruined for me because of her occasional “damsel in distress” episodes. They all speak with the same voice- using broad vocabulary, preaching peace. Their characters are just so similar, but perhaps that wouldn’t be the case if the author was writing in the point of view of so many different characters. Of course, this applies to all but Turnatt’s, because he is the malicious and evil hawk villain. As for Miltin’s death, it was sweet and somber, but I guess I didn’t understand how he died. I picked up on the detail that he broke his wing, but one of the reason she stated in the story was that “after all of his years as a slave, he couldn’t live any longer” or something along those lines. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It would had the character been elderly, but Miltin was a young robin, by my understanding. I was sitting there thinking for a moment, “Okay, so, he died because he was beat up before?” It would have made more sense if the injury had been more fatal...or perhaps the broken wing had been fatal enough, regardless of his past beatings. Another thing that I noticed was that the author dragged out details to the point where it just wasn’t necessary. She could turn a single piece of dialogue into a small paragraph. Overall, this book was nice. I liked it, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite. However, it is also helping me learn how to edit my story, and inspires me to keep on writing. Huge props to you, Nancy Yi Fan.

Gemini Gemini

This book is quite good in my opinion, and inspired me. I am younger than the author is, but at the moment I am also writing a book, and I have always loved writing stories, though I strongly doubted that if I tried to publish it, I’d have no chance. But when I read this, I thought, hey, maybe once I’m finished I could try to. This book is hard to beat, though. I think that the world that was created was quite intriguing, and I loved the characters, despite the fact that Miltin’s death I didn’t understand so well. I would definitely recommend it. It is also quite prestigious, and teaches valuable lessons and morals, and doesn’t influence anything bad, so really, I think it’s just fine for almost any kid to read it. I loved Swordbird, at least.

This book is really fun to read because it makes you want to know what the birds are going to do next, if you read it you'll probably notice that it teaches you about stuff then just for entertaining.