Wild Journey
These five adventure stories by award-winning author A.M Dassu feature different characters, and are set in different countries, but they are brought together by the unifying theme of starlings.
Each of the protagonists is experiencing some form of upheaval: there is Jamal, brought from home in London to visit his ailing grandfather in Egypt; Ella, who gets lost in the Sahara Desert while on a camel hike with her family; Aaron, who has an encounter with a wolf while in a forest in Asturias; Isabelle, on holidays in rural France, feeling displaced by her much younger sibling; and Yusuf, a refugee from Syria, acclimatising to a new school in the UK. Each of them is on developmental journey, and each finds solace in the presence of starlings – from finding one of their feathers to witnessing their extraordinary murmuration. The narrative is an effective way of stressing both our common humanity and our place in the wider natural world. The thematic cohesion is reflected by Lillington’s charming monochrome illustrations in shades of orange.
The overarching sense of the collection is of a world beyond and above human concerns, where a small feather is a symbol of hope, and being witness to a murmuration conveys a sense of resilience and a belief in a force beyond human comprehension. These stories make us pause to consider how individuals and larger communities interact, and how journeys and migration are an integral part of life, for all living creatures. A moving and uplifting collection.
