Wild Journey

The five stories in this collection take readers thousands of miles, from Egypt to Britain via Morocco, Spain and France. The murmuration of starlings is the linking motif, beautifully represented in Joe Lillington’s two-tone illustrations, and the theme is journeys and home. There’s high drama in the middle set of stories, which see their young protagonists lost in the Sahara desert and coming face to face with a pack of wolves in the mountains of Spain, but equally memorable are the characters’ inner journeys. In the opening story, ‘Star’, an encounter with an injured starling helps ten-year-old Jamal understand that sometimes you have to let those you love go, while in ‘Flight’, her grand-père’s stories show Isabelle how deep is her love for her family. The final story, entitled ‘Home’, is of Yusuf, recently arrived from Syria, finding a new flock of friends at his school. The stories are short, easy to read, but offer a rich reading experience and insight into what the starlings’ murmuration represents, that home is made by family and community, wherever you are, that people are as brave and resilient as the little birds wheeling above us on their incredible journeys.