The Silent Spillbills [Hardcover]

Tor Seidler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1998 | Age Level: 8 and up

Katerina has a problem with S's. A s-stuttering problem. And now that she's in seventh grade, at a new school, she's become self-conscious about it -- so self-conscious she hardly speaks to her classmates. Which confirms their opinion that she's stuck-up. For Katerina's last name is Farnsworth, and in her part of Connecticut, Farnsworth means Farnsworth Aeronautics, the major aircraft manufacturer, founded by her grandfather.

But if school life is miserable for Katerina, after-school life is the opposite -- at least on the days when she gets to go bird-watching with her father. Heaven, for her, is sitting with him in a rowboat in the wetlands off Farnsworth Bay. Of all the wonderful shore-birds indigenous to the wetlands, their particular favorite is one that isn't in any of the bird books. In fact, Katerina names the species herself: s-silent s-spillbill. But these small birds, with their drab brown feathers and remarkable aerial acrobatics, aren't everyone's favorite. When they're implicated in the crash of a Farnsworth jet prototype, Katerina's fearful grandfather develops an intense grudge against them. And when they're implicated in a second crash, his animosity hardens into a desire to destroy them.

By turns dramatic and funny, The Silent Spillbills is the story of these odd little birds and the girl who learns, in facing up to their enemies, to face up to her own fears.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Featuring a flock of rare diving birds called Spillbills, Seidler's (Mean Margaret; The Wainscott Weasel) latest offering for animal lovers is constructed with mixed success. Readers will empathize with his tenderhearted bird-loving heroine, 13-year-old Katerina Farnsworth, and may well be entertained by other boldly drawn characters: her renowned German psychiatrist mother; her famous father, president of Farnsworth Aeronautics; and rich, nasty Grandfather Farnsworth, the founder of the business. However, too many tangential conflicts muddy the central issue of Katerina's crusade to save the Spillbills, whose dramatic vertical flight pattern inspires the invention of the "Spillbill Z" aircraft. Reputed as being "stuck-up," Katerina has trouble fitting in at her new school and is extremely self-conscious about her stuttering problem. Then, shortly after Katerina's father lifts off to test a new space station, the family loses communication with him. Next, one of their friends, a test pilot, is killed in a Spillbill Z plane crash and the Spillbills themselves are blamed for the accident. Katerina's environmental efforts are valiant and sincere, but ultimately, it is an eloquent speech given by her mother that proves most effective in preserving the birds' habitat. The other concerns plaguing the heroine are neatly ironed out in a 15-page epilogue. Despite its structural flaws this highly imaginative novel offers suspense and offbeat humor. Young nature enthusiasts will likely want to see more of Katerina and her eccentric family. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7-Katerina is a poor little rich girl. She is painfully insecure, she stutters, and she's the only child of the famous Farnsworth Aeronautics family. She is also a bird-watcher, and she spends many afternoons with her father, canoeing the waterways around the airplane factory, looking through binoculars. It's there that the two of them discover an unrecorded bird that they dub the Silent Spillbill, and it's this bird that inspires the newest Farnsworth design. And it's this new plane that threatens to destroy the small population of spillbills unless Katerina can persuade her evil grandfather to move the factory upstream. Unfortunately, she is a wimp of a girl, and she's surrounded by one-dimensional adults-a preoccupied German psychoanalyst of a mother, a loving but busy father who is stranded on a space station for most of the story, and a cruel grandfather who has nothing but disdain for his stuttering granddaughter. Improbabilities add up as no one spends much time worrying about Katerina's father's loss of communication in outer space, the boy who is the bane of Katerina's existence suddenly seems to admire her, a colleague sends her mother an article about how to cure her daughter's stuttering and it works, and all ends happily as the factory is moved, the birds are saved, and, best of all, Katerina's grandfather dies. Seidler's admirable point of view on the environment and endangered species holds no water when it is forced upon characters who have no depth.
Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (October 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062051806
• ISBN-13: 978-0062051806
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,778,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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