cover image The Blue Between the Clouds

The Blue Between the Clouds

Stephen Wunderli. Henry Holt & Company, $13.95 (114pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-1772-4

Matt and his Native American friend Two Feathers live with Matt's family in a sleepy Utah town in 1939. They share a love of flight that leads them into assorted scrapes during their last summer before Two Moons has to go back to the reservation. As did Icarus, they construct a set of wings with disastrous results and later rebuild an airplane with the help of shell-shocked Uncle Emmett, a WW I ace. The boys' obsession with flight is unconvincingly explored, and their adventures have the rambling, episodic quality of a fondly remembered youth. This casts an aura of make-believe over the characters--what real child would think that wax and feathers could form a viable pair of wings? Nevertheless, Wunderli's debut features a credible well-real ized setting and sensitive look at his protagonists' friendship that should divert attention from the story's mechanical flaws. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)