The Summer Birds facts for kids
First edition
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| Author | Penelope Farmer |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus (UK) Harcourt Brace (US) |
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Publication date
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1962 |
| Media type | |
| Followed by | Emma in Winter |
The Summer Birds is a children's novel by British writer Penelope Farmer, published in 1962 by Chatto & Windus, and receiving a Carnegie Medal commendation.
It is the first of three books featuring the Makepeace sisters, Charlotte and Emma, These three books are sometimes known as the Aviary Hall books.[1]
Contents
Background
At the age of twenty-one, Penelope Farmer was contracted for her first collection of short stories, The China People. Whilst working as a teacher for the London County Council Education Department, she was approached by editor Margaret K. McElderry of Harcourt Brace to write a children's novel. Farmer took one story originally intended for The China People, but which proved too long to include, writing, "It was too big an idea, too bony as a short story." This was rewritten as the first chapter of The Summer Birds (1962), her first book featuring Charlotte and Emma Makepeace. The main settings of the book are a small village school in the South Downs in southern England, and Aviary Hall, the girls' home.
According to Farmer, Charlotte and Emma, who grow up in their Grandfather Elijah's house, were originally based on her mother and her mother's sister as children, having no parents and "…having to be everything to each other," one being the responsible one, the other being rather difficult.
Plot summary
Charlotte and Emma Makepeace are children living with their grandfather, Elijah, in a country house in the South Downs in southern England. Named Aviary Hall, the house is decorated with stuffed birds and images of birds. On the way to their small English village school, they meet and befriend a mysterious boy who tells them that he is able to teach them to fly. Over the following days and weeks, the boy teaches Charlotte to fly, and then the other children at the school learn this ability. The boy remains invisible to the adults, with the exception of the schoolteacher, Miss Hallibutt, who herself, as a child, had wished that she could fly. The boy tells her that he is unable to teach her to fly: he can only teach children.
The children spend an idyllic summer flying above their village and the downs. As summer draws to an end, the boy offers to take the children on a journey, and the children prepare to go with the boy. Charlotte realises that the boy is not telling them the whole truth, and forces the boy to admit the truth. The boy reveals that while he wants to take them back to his country where they can fly forever, and be children forever, without adult responsibilities, the cost of following him is that they will never be able to return to their homes and their loved ones. The children decide that this indeed is too high a price to pay, and all decline to travel with the boy, with the exception of one girl, who has neither parents, nor a happy life to return to. The children return to their homes and prepare to begin a new term at school.
Awards
The Summer Birds received a Carnegie Medal commendation in 1963. It was also listed that year as an American Library Association Notable Book.
Adaptations
In 1987, PBS Video released an educational adaptation of The Summer Birds on video. This video combines narration, artwork, sound effects and music to introduce a number of featured children's books to children.
Sequels
A second book, Emma in Winter, set roughly one and a half years later, with Emma as the main character, followed in 1966. Charlotte Sometimes followed in 1969, set slightly before the events of Emma in Winter, which follows Charlotte's first term at boarding school, about a year after the events in The Summer Birds.
