Night Flying

Rating:
Summary: Will Georgia's Initiation Be Spoiled?
Review: Generations of Hansen women have lived with the family secret...the ability to fly. But for Georgia Hansen, about to turn 16, there is another secret kept by her mother, aunts, and domineering grandmother that she must discover on her own. Anticipating her first solo flight on her 16th birthday, Georgia is worried that the arrival of her Aunt Carmen, who left the family and its rigid rules years earlier, may disrupt the initiation. This coming-of-age story reveals the harm hiding the truth can do, and the damage strict no-questions-asked rules can bring to a family. Rita Murphy's first novel will be a compelling read for young girls. However, for anyone past middle school, the story is rather simple. Murphy's characters lack any real depth, and the relationships are not fully developed. Also, when the truth is revealed, it is really no surprise to older readers who figured out Georgia's story at the beginning of the novel. Despite these weaknesses, the theme of being able to fly above it all, literally and figuratively, is universal, and younger readers will enjoy the protagonist's struggle with her independence.

Rating:
Summary: Coming of Age
Review: Georgia Hansen has a secret that she cannot share with even her closest friend. She and the other women in her family can fly. This secret, and the strict rules and code in which she lives by cause Georgia to struggle with her family as well as her own emotions. When Georgia learns the truth about her family from her rebellious Aunt Carmen, she performs an act that, in the past, has caused to be disowned. This book would be interesting to those who enjoy fantasy because of the thought of flying and the descriptions the author gives allow you to picture the events vividly in your mind. Since this is a coming of age story, teenage girls could learn a lot from the strength and courage Georgia exhibits and in her ability to make decisions. This would be an excellent book for teenagers who are questioning rules, family relationships, and even the devastation caused by secrets. The choices Georgia and her family make are positive and provide a good role model for teens to follow.

Rating:
Summary: Night Flying Takes Off!
Review: Georgia Hansen, along with all the other women in her family posses a special gift: the ability to fly. Despite the freedom that this type of power affords, the Hansen women's existence is controlled by rules created by Georgia's domineering grandmother. Even though Georgia knows the rules are essential to her family's survival, she can not help but feel stifled by them and dreams of a world where the only rule is that there are no rules.

While she is preparing for her first solo flight, Georgia's mysterious Aunt Carmen returns home after being banished from the family farm for rebelling against the rules. By accident (or by design) she reveals to Georgia secrets about her past and sets her off into a fit or rage and confusion during which she breaks one of the family's most important rules.

Rita Murphy's debut novel is a wonderful story about a young girl on the verge of becoming a women who is struggling to define her own self against a backdrop of rules and family secrets. Anyone can relate to Georgia's struggle between living up to her family's expectations of her and fulfilling her own desires. The language is simple, yet it paints a beautiful picture of rural Vermont that readers of any age can appreciate.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: My sister sent me this book because I have a t-shirt that says, "Women fly when men aren't watching." Rita Murphy must have this shirt too. "Night Flying" is a wonderfully written coming of age story that I am recommending to both mothers and daughters. From the opening line, "The Hansen women have always flown at night, even in bad weather," I was ready to fly along. As three geenrations of Hansen women prepare for Georgia's 16th birthday and her first solo flight, Georgia ponders what her mysterious Aunt Carmen did to be cast out from the family. When Carmen returns for the eventful birthday, we all learn something important about rules, and when to break them. I'm looking forward to Ms. Murphy's next work.

Rating:
Summary: Flying Into Reality
Review: My sister sent me this book because I have a t-shirt that says, "Women fly when men aren't watching." Rita Murphy must have this shirt too. "Night Flying" is a wonderfully written coming of age story that I am recommending to both mothers and daughters. From the opening line, "The Hansen women have always flown at night, even in bad weather," I was ready to fly along. As three geenrations of Hansen women prepare for Georgia's 16th birthday and her first solo flight, Georgia ponders what her mysterious Aunt Carmen did to be cast out from the family. When Carmen returns for the eventful birthday, we all learn something important about rules, and when to break them. I'm looking forward to Ms. Murphy's next work.

Rating:
Summary: The magic of flight
Review: Night Flying by Rita Murphy is an unusual story of a young girl, Georgia, growing up with a house full of women, her overbearing grandmother, her meek and loving mother, and two of her aunts, all of which are ???night flyers???. Grandmother rules the house with such strict guidelines such as no men in the house, no flying in the day, no meat, and the list of rules goes on and on. Everyone in the house obeys grandmother for fear that they will be cast out of the family like Carmen, one of Georgia???s aunts. Georgia often wonders, ???Who is this mysterious aunt that everyone talks about in such hushed tones and why was she outcast???? Georgia finds the answer to that question and many more when she decides to go out on her own and break a few of grandmother???s rules. Georgia stands up to her grandmother and sets a new standard for her mother and her aunts to follow.

Rating:
Summary: Fine coming of age tale.
Review: Rita Murphy, Night Flying (Delacorte, 2000)

Night Flying is one of those young adult books I happened to pick up by accident because it was in the wrong section at the Case book sale. Glad I did, because this is a fun little book. Murphy never talks down to her audience, refreshing in a YA novel, and better yet, adult readers won't gag on the sentiment. Murphy has a message, but she is as good as any novelist writing for adults (and better than most) at making it palatable.

Georgia Hansen is on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. To say her life has been something less than conventional would be an understatement. She lives in a house with only women, none of whom work (all are living off the inheritance of her great-grandfather, an inventor who died with enough to ensure that Georgia's granddaughters will never have to work, either) and all of whom can fly. They do so only under the auspices of very strict rules; each female member of the family adds a rule as time goes on. You can imagine what it's like after a few generations. All, with the exception of wayward Aunt Carmen (who lives across the country), are under the thumb of Georgia's grandmother, a stern and humorless individual whose main goal seems to be making life miserable for her offspring and their offspring.

Things start to get messy when Carmen comes back for Georgia's birthday celebration. Georgia immediately forms a love/hate relationship with her, yearning after Carmen's freedom while wondering how someone could so easily slip the bonds of family obligation. (It's not so simple as all that, of course, which Georgia finds out eventually, but so the relationship begins).

At its core, this is a pretty simple coming-of-age tale, albeit with magical-realistic elements. Murphy, as with the best of the magical realist authors, never allows the trappings to get in the way of her story, especially her character development. Everyone, major characters and minor, is well developed and has a place in the little sonata that is this novel; not a note falls out of place. The allegory is somewhat obvious (the ability to fly is gained, but suppressed until the sixteenth birthday), and the action in the climax somewhat predictable, but Murphy addresses the subject form a perspective that is not often seen; she's a young adults' author writing from the perspective of a young adult who has a brain of her own, rather than showing a young adult whose beliefs and opinions are just those of a "more mature" (read: adult) mindset. This, more than anything, lends the book its magical realism; the idea that
sometimes the kids really are correct.

A fine read. ****

Rating:
Summary: Short and Sweet
Review: The women in the Hansen family have always had the power to fly. Georgia has been fling for as long as she remembers and when she turns 16 she will be able to fly by herself for the first time. But everything gets screwed up when Georgia's Aunt Carmen comes to visit. The aunt that has been banished from the family. Suddenly Georgia's perception on her solo flight, her grandmother's harsh rules, and her life is changed. So when she commits an unforgivable offense, how will her family react?

I loved this book. It's was VERY short but still a wonderful read. Georgia is easy to relate to and reading her story just makes you wanna fly. If you like stories with just a pinch (or more) of the supernatural in them this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Will Georgia's Initiation Be Spoiled?
Review: The women of the Hansen family can fly and have been flying for generations. Unfortunately, however, their gift is bound by a strict code of rules laid down by the family matriarch, Grandmother Hansen. Grandmother Hansen is both domineering and cold. She controls the both the family fortune and the lives of her daughters and granddaughter with an iron fist. But family secrets are set to fly as 16-year-old Georgia Hansen's initiation ceremony draws near. The return of Georgia's rebellious Aunt Carmen, who was banished from the family years earlier for breaking Grandmother Hansen's rules, creates a major dilemma for Georgia. Should she fall in line with the rest of the Hansen clan in accepting Grandmother Hansen's controlling protection or should she step forward and take back control of her own life?