the girl's mom died, her father became weird. he eats insect and imagines he can fly. one day, the two hold a competition that the man flies in the sky. the girl helps her father to make wings. although the girl's aunt thought the girl's father is unnormal, the girl and her father still join the competition. ( )

This book was about a little girl called Lizzie who's dad is joining the Human Birdman Competition. The competition was 'who can be a bird and use a technique to fly over the Tyne'. Obviously Lizzie doesn't understand, but when she and her dad make a bird's nest, two crests, too beaks, two pairs of wings and signs up on Mr Poop's document, she understands that her dad is just that little bit crazy.

Lizzie's auntie, Doreen, thinks that this is all utter nonsense (which it is) and calls in Lizzie's head teacher, Mr Mint, to take Lizzie away from her dad's craziness. But Lizzie doesn't want to, and in the end, she and her clever dad (and even Mr Mint) all entered the competition...

...And failed.

"But that doesn't matter, Dad," Lizzie would keep saying, "We had fun making the beaks and crests and wings - and it's not over. We can do that again. So it's not bad that we failed. It would be better if we won, but we didn't, and that's fine."

This book was more of a strange one, and David Almond must have had a very odd imagination to come up with a man who'd like to enter a bird competition. But some people do have odd ideas, and I'm not saying that David's book wasn't good and that David was weird. ( )

Impressive. Subtle & beautifully crafted fable of loss and rebirth, a counterpoint response to the story of Daedalus & Icarus. The casual reader will enjoy it as a funny story, with charming illustrations - but upon re-reading will appreciate language and metaphor and themes. I don't want to spoil it for you so I won't say more - it's short, so you can find the time to make it yourself.

I will say that if you appreciate the juveniles by [a:James Thurber|16839|James Thurber|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1183238729p2/16839.jpg], like[b:The 13 Clocks|143126|The 13 Clocks|James Thurber|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1293669643s/143126.jpg|2099329] and [b:Many Moons|73002|Many Moons|James Thurber|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223647821s/73002.jpg|19210930], you'll also enjoy this. I think I'll have to re-read Almond's [b:Skellig|24271|Skellig (Skellig, #1)|David Almond|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320460285s/24271.jpg|960] now that I have a better sense of how to read what he writes. ( )

This amusing story can be interpreted in different ways: live your life to the fullest, find the joy in life, love holds everyone together even in the dark times. Lizzie cares for her father in the wake of her mother's death (only briefly mentioned late in the book) and lovingly indulges him when he becomes obsessed with the Great Human Bird Competition. ( )

Narrated by Sarah Coombs. It’s just Lizzie and Dad after Mum’s passing. Lizzie is very protective of her father especially given his current odd behavior: he is attempting to fly and act like a bird. Lizzie sees how important this is to him and she joins him in the human bird competition over the protests of her Auntie Doreen. Coombs reads energetically in a lilting cockney accent, expressing Lizzie's warmth and affection for her father. This story is a bit of an odd duck, though. ( )

The story as always is well told, I just prefer his darker eccentric characters. ( )

My Dad's a Birdman was written by David Almond, who won the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award for writing, and illustrated by Polly Dunbar. It was originally published in 2007 by Candlewick Press.

Young Lizzie is concerned about her father, who has been acting strangely ever since her mother died. He has been building a set of wings, eating bugs and worms, and working on learning to fly. When the "Great Human Bird Competition" comes to town, Lizzie decides to enter with her dad, in the process gently helping him to redefine the line between reality and fantasy, and reminding him of the importance of family and love, even in the face of loss.

This quirky little novel is beautifully and subtly written, with memorable characters, including not only Lizzie and her dad, but Lizzie's Aunt Doreen and teacher, Mr. Mint. The writing is perfectly complemented by Dunbar's whimsical and colourful illustrations.

Children will enjoy the offbeat plot, and will be able to identify with the way Lizzie's dad gets so involved in his fantasy. They will especially appreciate the role reversal between the wise young Lizzie and her father, which is so cleverly and comically portrayed. This book is appropriate for ages 6 to 10. ( )

If you like Roald Dahl books you may especially enjoy this story by David Almond: My Dad's a Birdman.

In some families, a parent takes care of the children. They cook, clean, make sure the children do their homework, all those kinds of things.

In some families, the child has to be in charge. That's how it is with Lizzie.

And her father, dreams of doing big things. Not very practical things. The kinds of things that Auntie Doreen gets really upset about.

And sometimes even in the middle of an impractical, unrealistic plan, a family can laugh and grow closer to each other.

What a funny silly story! Odd but interesting with peculiar people who dare to attempt to do an unusual thing. Lizzie's Dad is the birdman who is obsessed about the flying contest and does everyting to make himself into a birds so he can fly. He wears feathers, sits in nest, eats worms. Lizzie gets into the act too much to the dismay of her Aunt Doreen. Then there is Mr. Poop who is charge of the contest. British humor at its best. A fun read aloud with interesting character development. Children and adults will wonder why Dad does the things he does and why Lizzie joined him. There are other threads in the story to consider. ( )

Young Lizzie's widowed dad has regressed back to childhood - to the point where she has to force him to eat breakfast, can't get him out of pajamas and even frets about leaving him alone in the house while she's at school. Worse, he's constructed wings, taken to eating bugs and worms on the sly to get his weight down and entered the Great Human Bird Competition in order to "make me mark at last." Building on this premise, the author unexpectedly fashions a buoyant story in which "It doesn't matter if we fly or if we fall. We've got each other. We're doing it together. That's all that matters." The characters sport silly names like Doreen Doody and Mr. Poop, and Dunbar's colored illustrations, which appear on nearly every spread, evoke Quentin Blake.

This book got great reviews, but I couldn't get past the incongruity between the humorous treatment and tremendously sad underpinnings. This brave and competent little girl having to take care of her totally nuts father - it just didn't make sense with the whimiscal, style. Lovely, equally whimsical illustrations match the style but only add to the contradiction. ( )

Lizzie's a bright, independent girl who gets her self up in the morning, gets dressed, makes tea and toast, and calls her dad down to breakfast. But dad drags. Dad droops. And when asked what his plans are for the day while she's at school dad announces that he's going to fly like a bird and enter the human bird competition. Suddenly we are faced with a role reversal of a responsible parent-like child and a child-like parent. What would cause this reversal only becomes obvious by the lack, and no mention of, Lizzie's mother. This is made clear a few chapters in when Lizzie's Aunt Doreen drops by to see to how Lizzie and her dad are getting along. Once she sees that dad has fashioned a set of wings for himself and has taken to eating bugs (in order to be more bird-like), and that Lizzie has taken to staying home from school to watch after her dad it becomes painfully clear that we are dealing with a great unspoken grief.

In the end Lizzie and her dad participate together in the Great Human Bird Competition, a sort of flugtag where people adorn themselves in wings and rockets and whatnot and attempt to traverse a body of water propelled under their own power. Dad's obsession with flying at first seems a bi-product of a mental break-down, but as Lizzie (and eventually her Headmaster) discover as they participate in the competition, the act of faith necessary to hurl yourself into the world is exactly what they both need in order to move ahead with their lives. Feeling more alive than before, they reconnoiter back at Aunt Doreen's for some dumplings and find themselves dancing with a new-found joy, a joy that leaves them lighter than birds and flying off the ground.

Almond has managed to dip his pen into Roald Dahl's inkwell and produce a magnificent examination of what it means to find joy after loss, for a family to find their way through the other side of the darkness no matter how odd it may look on the outside. Aunt Doreen and the Headmaster understand the situation and are keeping tabs to make sure that Lizzie and her dad don't fall to far off track, but they hang back enough to let the process run its course.

The feel of this book is what gives it the Dahl flavor in my mind. It would be hard to imagine this story in a contemporary environment without meddling government agencies and relatives who would insist on remaining in the home to assure everything was alright. Aunt Doreen makes a social call but is driven from the house by the sheer absurdity of it all, promising to return with help. The help she return with isn't the police or child protective services but the school headmaster who is more interested in joining Lizzie and her dad in their adventure rather than find fault, place a judgment, or insist on a return to normalcy. It is also in the child as the responsible one and the adults as fools that I find the spectre of Dahl lurking.

Almond can't seem to get away from the connections he makes with birds and death, and certainly there's enough mythology, symbolism, and history to support these connections. But Almond chose the bird's ability to fly to show a rising above, a phoenix-like symbolism for a family being reborn from the ashes of their sorrow. There is nothing sad or sorrowful in the book itself, the entire affair has a sense of whimsy to it, but it's all there just below the surface allowing us to how happiness and joy can re-emerge from experience. ( )

http://valentinasroom.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-dads-birdman-david-almond.html ( )