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A review by alicebennett
Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis
5.0
Lewis’ ‘Sky Hawk’ is a story of friendship, perseverance, hope and mystery set in the countryside of Scotland. It is about two unlikely friends, protagonist Callum and fiery Iona, who share an incredible secret that pushes their emotions to the edge as they struggle to protect it. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found myself in tears at one point because I was so invested in Lewis’ very real characters. The book would go into the adventure and animal category and would be suitable for children 9 and older (Upper Key Stage Two).
I really liked the author’s use of description in creating the characters of Iona and Callum. For example, Iona is described as a: “pale skinny girl” with “floating ends of her long red hair”. This immediately tells readers that Iona is unique and sets her apart from the boys watching her. Iona is seen lying on a rock with her hands deep into the water of the loch below trying to catch a fish, implying that she is brave, independent and may be trying to fend for herself and perhaps a family struggling to get by. As a teacher, I could ask my children to find quotes from the first two chapters of the book that support these ideas to help them learn to analyse and justify their answers. We could also do something similar for Callum and make predictions about what we think might happen to them both in the story.
I would also look Lewis’ use of ellipsis to build suspense and create tension in the story, for example: “I CAN’T! One. . . Do it. Go. . . The ground was gone. I was flying. . . falling.”. Using this technique keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and teaches children that when writing an exciting story, it can be a more effective way of writing because the reader has to wait longer to find out what has happened. We would come up with own examples of ellipsis to display on the board and then we would have a go at writing suspenseful paragraphs in Lewis’ style.
I would ask the children to go through different sections of the text and pick some of their favourite words and phrases, for example I would draw their attention to: “a smudge of purple mountains”. We could create pictures around these phrases to explore the meaning of: “a smudge” and spark the children’s imagination for their own creative and descriptive writing.
We could play a fun prediction game when we finish a chapter of the book, for example in chapter four Iona and Callum’s secret is finally revealed to us, and so after reading the previous chapter we could all think about what the secret could be and draw a picture or write about what each child thinks it is.
The book also offers lots of cross-curricular opportunities including Geography, the aforementioned Art, History, Music and Science. The story takes place in rural Scotland and so I would teach the class about Scottish culture, lifestyle, history and legends, such as the famous Loch-ness monster. We would have fun decorating the classroom with flags, a multitude of birds, flowers and maybe a pretend lake filled with fish and our own monster. Furthermore, the story is also centred around Osprey birds of prey. The children would learn all about different birds and I’d show them videos and pictures of impressive birds of prey. We could do a research project on different types of birds, adaptation and migration, as we see with the journey of Iris. In Music we could create our own bird noises using a variety of instruments and see if the children can identify each others. I would also introduce the children to classic stories and Greek mythology because the name of the female osprey is Iris, the Greek goddess of the wind and sky. The book also deals with death and grief which I would handle in a sensitive way and teach older children about this in a PSHE lesson where they could support each other and understand it more.
Moreover, the book features different styles of writing and this would be the perfect opportunity to teach the children about these, for example writing inserts from Callum’s diary, writing a newspaper article about the village campaign raising lots of money for Jebena's operation, a bird fact file, a letter to Jebena in the hospital and creative writing about Iris’ journey in South Africa with the coordinates of her position at the time. Children would really enjoy writing in a variety of styles, learning about the audience, features and purpose for each one and using pages from the book as models for writing their own osprey adventures.
I really liked the author’s use of description in creating the characters of Iona and Callum. For example, Iona is described as a: “pale skinny girl” with “floating ends of her long red hair”. This immediately tells readers that Iona is unique and sets her apart from the boys watching her. Iona is seen lying on a rock with her hands deep into the water of the loch below trying to catch a fish, implying that she is brave, independent and may be trying to fend for herself and perhaps a family struggling to get by. As a teacher, I could ask my children to find quotes from the first two chapters of the book that support these ideas to help them learn to analyse and justify their answers. We could also do something similar for Callum and make predictions about what we think might happen to them both in the story.
I would also look Lewis’ use of ellipsis to build suspense and create tension in the story, for example: “I CAN’T! One. . . Do it. Go. . . The ground was gone. I was flying. . . falling.”. Using this technique keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and teaches children that when writing an exciting story, it can be a more effective way of writing because the reader has to wait longer to find out what has happened. We would come up with own examples of ellipsis to display on the board and then we would have a go at writing suspenseful paragraphs in Lewis’ style.
I would ask the children to go through different sections of the text and pick some of their favourite words and phrases, for example I would draw their attention to: “a smudge of purple mountains”. We could create pictures around these phrases to explore the meaning of: “a smudge” and spark the children’s imagination for their own creative and descriptive writing.
We could play a fun prediction game when we finish a chapter of the book, for example in chapter four Iona and Callum’s secret is finally revealed to us, and so after reading the previous chapter we could all think about what the secret could be and draw a picture or write about what each child thinks it is.
The book also offers lots of cross-curricular opportunities including Geography, the aforementioned Art, History, Music and Science. The story takes place in rural Scotland and so I would teach the class about Scottish culture, lifestyle, history and legends, such as the famous Loch-ness monster. We would have fun decorating the classroom with flags, a multitude of birds, flowers and maybe a pretend lake filled with fish and our own monster. Furthermore, the story is also centred around Osprey birds of prey. The children would learn all about different birds and I’d show them videos and pictures of impressive birds of prey. We could do a research project on different types of birds, adaptation and migration, as we see with the journey of Iris. In Music we could create our own bird noises using a variety of instruments and see if the children can identify each others. I would also introduce the children to classic stories and Greek mythology because the name of the female osprey is Iris, the Greek goddess of the wind and sky. The book also deals with death and grief which I would handle in a sensitive way and teach older children about this in a PSHE lesson where they could support each other and understand it more.
Moreover, the book features different styles of writing and this would be the perfect opportunity to teach the children about these, for example writing inserts from Callum’s diary, writing a newspaper article about the village campaign raising lots of money for Jebena's operation, a bird fact file, a letter to Jebena in the hospital and creative writing about Iris’ journey in South Africa with the coordinates of her position at the time. Children would really enjoy writing in a variety of styles, learning about the audience, features and purpose for each one and using pages from the book as models for writing their own osprey adventures.