TALON, COME FLY WITH ME

Review by David Broughton

Review by David Broughton. Too Tall
My review of
Talon, Come Fly With Me
By Gigi Sedlmayer


This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time, of any variety. (I
review a lot of books, so I see more than most people.) The lead character is
young Matica is from Australia but now lives in Pucara, located on a high and
open, sandy, vast plateau of the Andes about a thousand meters up in Peru,
South America. Matica finds and befriends a rare condor, and eventually the
condor's family. The condor family becomes part of Matica's family, in a way after
Matica and her father do their best to protect them from poachers. Everyone in
the family helps hatch their egg …
that's just the beginning of the story.

There is a lot in this book, in many ways, it's a unique story a
great read, but there must be more than a hundred lessons it can teach
children, without them ever knowing they're learning anything. There are
lessons about ecology, family, native ways, just to name a few. This story
somewhat leaves me at a loss for what to say about it. All the superfluous
words in my arsenal fail to do it justice. Talon is so good on so many levels,
that adults will enjoy it, so will children, whether the children can read it
themselves of have it read to them. There is drama, humor, and a flight of fancy
or two throughout Talon.

The only odd thing that caught this editor's eye was the British
(and Aussie) spellings and punctuation style. Once I got used to that, it
flowed beautifully. This book is a keeper, that's for sure. If you buy the hard
cover edition, you'll want to hand it down through the family for generations
to come, it's that good. I guess that's all I can say about the book; the
author on the other hand, is a story waiting to be told. I'll let her tell it,
when she's ready, it should be quite the interesting story too. You'd never
know from this book that English is her third language.

P.S. to the author: Keep that editor, he or she is worth their
weight in platinum!