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Nightingale's Nest

por Nikki Loftin

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12315220,536 (3.43)1
In this twist on "The Nightingale," Little John, despite his own poverty and grief, reaches out to Gayle, an unhappy foster child living next-door who sings beautifully and hides a great secret.
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Mostrando 1-5 de 15 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
This is going to be one of those times when I read a book that everyone else seems to love and I just don't get it. Riddled with sadness and ambiguity, I didn't truly enjoy the story at all. The closest I could come to liking this book was appreciating that author Nikki Loftin created something unusual and touching. There's a lot of good stuff here, but it didn't come together in a meaningful way for this reader. The writing was only so-so and the symbolism heavy-handed. Still, here we go:

Little John is a boy in a lamentable situation. His little sister recently died in a tragic accident. He's estranged from his best friend because he's too proud to admit that his family is nearing poverty and falling apart. Little John's teachers make him feel stupid, his mother makes him feel invisible, and his father treats him like a hired hand.

Enter a mysterious new girl who's taken in as a foster child by the awful Cutlin family in the same small town where Little John lives. She calls herself Gayle, though the Cutlins insist her name is Suzie. She reminds Little John of his sister because she's small and feisty, but her most marked characteristic is her beyond-beautiful singing voice and belief in her own magical abilities.

Little John and Gayle become friends. He tries to protect her and at the same time can't resist extorting her for money that his family desperately needs. The villain here is Mr. King, the richest man in town. Known by town folk as "The Emperor," Mr. King is obsessed with recording Gayle's voice to add to his collection. His villainous qualities are ambiguous, though. Gayle fears him and is traumatized by his presence, but why? We don't exactly know. She says he's like a crow. Little John has a built-in reason to loathe King: his father is employed by Mr. King and resents him for being haughty and rich.

The plot is driven by something you know is going to happen, even though it seems so unlikely. Gayle makes Little John promise to protect her tree and her nest because she believes her parents will use these as beacons to find her--but it's somehow inevitable that Little John will break his promise. It also seemed inevitable to me that Little John would redeem himself.

Just a few other details to mention:

1. Little John lives five miles from Mr. King and the Cutlins. In the heat of summer, he runs those five miles (ten round trip) so many times! At first, it's portrayed as a difficult journey for Little John, but then it becomes something he just does without comment. I thought this was convenient for the plot and not very believable.

2. It also bothered me that Raelynn's death was set up as a something the family still needed to deal with, but in the end they went around the issue instead of through it.

3. I'm not a fan of stories that end with poor people conveniently coming into a lot of money and voila! Everything's better! (Also it would've made more sense for Mr. King to leave all his money to Gayle instead of Little John. It's like Gayle was a just a tool that Little John controlled. I would've liked to understand the relationship between Gayle and Mr. King better. )

4. This story bears only a slight resemblance to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Nightingale". I wouldn't call it a re-telling or say it was based on it. I believe the book jacket says "inspired by" and that's fair. I encourage you to go read "The Nightingale" online. It's short and tells a very different kind of story--one about valuing an imitation above the real deal. Also, in Andersen's story the main relationship is between the nightingale and the Emperor. ( )
  LibrarianDest | Jan 3, 2024 |
children's middlegrade fiction (the nightingale revisited). I loved the color (girl with dark skin! showing her whole face on the cover, yay!) but felt the characters were flat and unrealistic. Little John had had to grow up quickly following his little sister's death, but he was still a kid, and I felt like young readers wouldn't be able to connect with his stilted personality. The mom, rather than coming across as the broken shell of a mother she supposedly was, just seemed like a person with some partially fleshed out symptoms of grief--I didn't 'feel' her at all, and it just didn't work for me. The plot itself was ok (as far as I read--p.136/chapter 16) and I would've liked to see how it ended if the characters didn't annoy me so much. ( )
  reader1009 | Jul 3, 2021 |
Can you guess which fairy tale this book is loosely based on? It’s the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Nightingale.” It’s fun to read that short story first, then pick up this book and see if you can spot what’s the same about them (and what’s been changed or added).

While Little John is helping his dad clear trees for wealthy, selfish Mr. King, he meets the foster child who lives with his awful neighbors. Her name is Gayle. She sings as beautifully as a bird, and her voice seems to have healing powers. Little John becomes fond of her and wants to protect her, especially because she reminds him of his little sister, who died a few months earlier.

But Little John is torn between his desire to take care of Gayle and his family’s need for money to pay the rent. So when Mr. King offers Little John a whole bunch of money if he’ll bring Gayle to sing in King’s recording studio (called the Cage), Little John doesn’t know what to do.

Little John’s choice sets off a roller coaster of events that will require him to decide over and over again what’s right and what’s wrong, even when it’s not quite clear.

Grownup portion of review:

A great pre-reading or follow-up activity with this book is to read about Hans Christian Andersen's unrequited love for opera singer Jenny Lind, who inspired "The Nightingale."

And a warning about the book: when Mr. King records Gayle's voice behind closed doors, there is a slight implication that some kind of abuse, perhaps sexual, takes place. Kids will likely not perceive the insinuation unless they have experienced something similar. ( )
  rhowens | Nov 26, 2019 |
Twelve-year-old John Fischer Jr., “Little John” as he’s always been known, is spending the hot Texas summer helping his father to clear trees for Mr. King, the richest and most powerful man in town. Then one day he hears a song through the brush, one so beautiful that it stops him in his tracks. He follows the melody and finds, not a bird, but a young girl sitting in the branches of a tall sycamore tree. There’s something magical about this girl, Gayle, especially her soaring singing voice.

Little John's home is full of sorrow over his sister’s death and endless stress over money troubles. But his friendship with Gayle quickly becomes the one bright spot in tough times . . . until Mr. King forces Little John into an impossible choice: risk his family’s wages and survival, or put Gayle's future in danger.

Inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story, Nightingale's Nest is an unforgettable novel about a boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and a girl with the gift of healing in her voice.
  Gmomaj | Nov 5, 2019 |
This is the tale of a boy in a poor family. He and his father are working for a rich man, who lives next door to another poor family. That family has a foster child whose singing can heal wounds and who may or may not be a magical being. And this is a tale that has several major problems.
First, there is the magic issue. Gayle is mildly abused under foster care. Her singing can heal wounds, and she seems to believe she is a bird. However, this magical element is almost irrelevant to the story. The same tale could have been told if she simply had the best singing voice anyone had ever heard, with no magical element at all. So the magic is secondary and almost pointless.
Second, there is the narrator, 12- or 13-year-old Little John. This boy spends the entire book making bad decisions, making promises he knows he can't keep, going back on those promises, accepting deals he knows are bad... he behaves like an idiot, even by preteen standards.
Third, Mr. King is presented as the villain of the book. Both Little John and Gayle just know inherently that he is a "bad man." And yet, during the entire course of the book, he never does anything wrong. He's rich, arrogant, and demanding... but he never does anything at all illegal. His greatest evil seems to be that he's pushy about getting what he wants. Hardly the stuff of a true villain.
Terribly disappointing book. I do not recommend it. ( )
  fingerpost | Aug 15, 2019 |
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In this twist on "The Nightingale," Little John, despite his own poverty and grief, reaches out to Gayle, an unhappy foster child living next-door who sings beautifully and hides a great secret.

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