The Simple Art of Flying
By: Cory Leonardo / Narrated By: P. J. Ochlan
Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
Yeh yeh yeh—You knooooow how this is all gonna turn out, but oh what a sweet journey!
Okay, just up front; this ain’t my first P.J. Ochlan narration, but I gotta admit that early on, I wasn’t so sure that I’d be able to handle just under 7 hours of it all. He’s kinda pitchy with a bit of shrill squeakiness to his voice. It warbles, it wavers, it’s kinda hard on the ears.
…Until I remembered that this is a bird’s voice he’s relaying here, and then? All was fine. I mean, his voice grows on a person, and it doesn’t detract from the story in any way. It’s just that initially? Good cow, man!
So the story opens with the birth of Alastair the grey parrot, in a pet shop, being granted a name by a boy named Fritz. Life in the pet shop ain’t so hot, and Alastair is forEVER dreaming of a blue sky where he and the sister he adores, Aggie, will have lives as free parrots. He’s dreaming of escape, and in no way does he wish to bond with, gross, all these people around him. When any attention is shown him, he’s more apt to bite than to coo for cuddles.
-Unlike- little sister Aggie. Fritz, the young boy who works part-time at the shop, dreams of one day growing up to be a doctor, and he cares for all the animals in the shop as tho’ they’re his patients. His medical knowhow comes in handy a couple of times when, be prepared, the avaricious store owner is angered by Alastair, flings him at the wall, and he breaks Alastair’s wing. Alastair comes to, bandaged by Fritz, and now he’s plotting his and Aggie’s escape posthaste. But this tenderness by Fritz has Aggie feeling fondly towards the boy, his earnestness, his goodwill, his affectionate nature. Soon she’s chittering and cooing and is blossoming under Fritz’s tender care.
An outrage! and Alastair shudders each time he sees her public displays of affection, how she blossoms under Fritz’s care. He steps up the tales of how awesome their lives will be when they escape and are free. But Aggie starts getting vague about escape, and she keeps reminding Alastair that Fritz has promised to buy her… uhm, them… uhm, no actually, maybe just her, seeing as Alastair’s bitten pretty much every finger the boy has.
Things happen, Aggie goes away, and as Alastair frets and makes plans to get to Aggie, he begins plucking his own feathers out. He’s right miserable, and this is when the elderly Albertina Plopky comes in to save the day? or maaaaybe to gum up the works? She has a wish to bring Alastair to her home, to bond with him, to have a companion to go with her fish and her crotchety cat. But Alastair is just getting more stressed being away from Aggie, and even as Albertina is so very kind to him, not scolding when he scarfs his favorite, cherries, like, an enTIRe bowl’s worth, even as she speaks gently to him, he plots, he scowls, he sulks, and he pulls more feathers out. A chance to dash outside sets a whole rollercoaster ride of events into motion, and Albertina makes a choice that will break her heart, maaaaybe…
This might be for 8-12 year olds, but truly? Even parents will find it touching and heartwarming. It’s a good old-fashioned lesson on dreaming, the price of dreams, and about how to maybe look around yourself after taking a good long look within yourself. Cuz sometimes to get to happiness, you have to break your own danged heart, and maybe those around you will shatter your heart in an effort to heal it. It’s touch and go there for a while, my dear Accomplice, and while this isn’t a big ol’ weep-fest, I DEFinitely felt a lump in m’ throat at a part here, a part there.
Told through Fritz’s journal (He’s keeping notes cuz he’s gotta learn how to document things if he ever wants to be a doctor), told through letters Albertina writes to her long-gone husband, and most importantly, told through Alastair’s voice, this goes back and forth really quite smoothly. There are the additions of poems that Alastair’s written after >ahem< EATING books about literature and such all, and these efforts are really quite sweet, and one or two of them had me checking author Cory Leonardo’s background cuz some of that poetry just smacks of MFA (In a goooood way!), as tho’ Alastair ate the coursework for post-grad programs.
Plus there’s an erudite fish in the story, so what’s not to love?
Yup, an early knee-jerk spaz response to the breaking within Ochlan’s voice, but soon I caught his rhythm and appreciated the enthusiasm with which he relayed this charming story. He made Albertina sound really dear, and the way he did Fritz, and the way Fritz was written, he’s a very precocious boy (And I usually haaaaate that!), but he’s also inCREDibly kindhearted, not only to animals but to the elderly and all requiring patience, attention, assistance.
Just a good and solid Listen, a sweet treat of a story, and I wound up loving fish and thinking that maybe guinea pigs might be awesome friends to have, all loyal and whatnot.
A bittersweet Happily Ever After had me misty-eyed at the end, tho’ it was more sweet than bitter. I’m usually ALL for reality winding its way into stories for young’uns, but there’s nothing here that you’d have to worry might have your kids weeping (It’s more geared for adults and our desperate grasp of how unkind time can be…).
Precious, just absolutely precious.
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