Review: Disappointed
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 17, 2013
Henry is a homing pigeon who delivers messages to his owner's friend and neighbour when his owner is kidnapped and held for ransom. The bird flies back and forth between this neighbour, Tammy and his owner, Evelyn from the variety of places that her kidnapper takes her.Ms. Scarberry wrote this novel from Tammy's (the neighbour) point of view. It is  simply written and easy to read.Unfortunately, Ms. Scarberry did not research homing pigeons very well. After reading the novelette, I checked on the internet to see if homing pigeons could be taught to fly to a person rather than to a specific location (their home). They cannot. Homing pigeons are taught to return to one location. "Pigeons can only go back to one "mentally marked" point that they have identified as their home" ([...]I also found the story to be very repetitive. Henry flies to Tammy with a message. Tammy tells the authorities and puts Henry in the cat carrier. Authorities take Henry and the message (and presumably is released to fly to wherever Evelyn has been taken). This happens for several different locations. It would have been interesting to know how Evelyn was able to collect the bird and write a note if she were someone's captive. Wouldn't she have been tied up? Wasn't her captor watching her?All of that aside, this is a cute story suitable for children who are just beginning to read chapter books (ages 8-12). Ms. Scarberry's novelette is a good first attempt at novel writing. I hope she continues to develop her craft.I gave this book 1 star.I got this book for free on Amazon.ca. All thoughts are my own.