LitPick Review
It’s 1957 and seven-year-old Alex, the main character in A Jar Full of Angel Feathers by Susan Russell, has just lost his mother. Even worse, his father wants to start a new life, so he sends Alex from their home in London to live in Cornwall with his Aunt Mary for a year. Alex isn’t used to the quiet countryside. He desperately misses both his parents and the hustle and bustle of the city.
Despite his misery, he soon finds a few new friends. George, a classmate from school, invites Alex to visit his farm, and in return, Alex brings George to play in the woods near Aunt Mary’s house.
One day when Alex is exploring the woods by himself, he meets a mysterious girl named Flora. She warns Alex about the "Gnarly Man," an old oak tree that turns into a man who chases after naughty children at night. As the three friends play together, Alex starts to forget how much he misses his former life. When his year in Cornwall is over, will he be happy to go back to London, or sad to leave his new friends?
Opinion:
A Jar Full of Angel Feathers is a simple, enjoyable story about a young boy overcoming a difficult patch in his life. The author and illustrator, Susan Russell, uses very descriptive language that helped me visualize the characters and setting in a way that the illustrations couldn’t. This book had the perfect number of characters, and their realistic feelings and challenges made me care about them.
Although this story wasn’t especially fast paced, I still wanted to keep reading to figure out how things turned out. One thing I didn’t like about this book was that the author used apostrophes instead of quotation marks around quotes. I got used to it after a while, but it was strange at first. Also, there were a lot of British spellings of words, which was a bit weird to me.
I liked that this book has a positive message: Never give up and always be open to making new friends. I strongly recommend this great book to kids around the ages of 7-11.
