Blackbird Fly audiobook

i fucking loved this. it's an adorable, uplifting coming age of story. and i found myself bursting into tears from time to time because the main character is a filipino girl. to finally read from the pov of someone who is like me who i can relate to 10000% on so many levels. this was a book i needed when i was growing up. this was the book i needed for so long. i cannot wait to read more from this author. i just absolutely loved this.

Ah, this book! I love a good, realistic, no-holds-barred MG, and this is definitely one. The main character, Apple, struggles to fit in with her "friends" at school, and some of these scenes are so very real that they're almost hard to read. Such a great, diverse book! Highly recommended.

Richie’s Picks: BLACKBIRD FLY by Erin Entrada Kelly, Greenwillow, March 2015, 304p., ISBN: 978-0-06-223861-0“While you look so sweetly and divine, I can feel you here.I see your eyes are busy kissing mine, and I do, I do.Wondering what it is they’re expecting to see,Should someone be looking at me?”-- George Harrison, “Let it Down”“My mother frowned. ‘Your father gave you that nickname.’“I thought of my father’s name written in black marker on Abbey Road. When you write your name on something, it means it’s really important to you, so it must have been one of his most prized possessions. I always thought that meant he was creative and smart. But if he was so creative and smart, why did he give me such a stupid nickname? Did he ever think about how it would make me feel? Did he ever think about how my name would look when I had to write it on things?“I swallowed. ‘I don’t care.’ And why should I? The only information I had about my father besides the tape were a few fuzzy memories and a postcard from our island in the Philippines, and that’s not really information, it’s just a picture of where we lived. There aren’t even any people in the picture. Just a white sandy beach and blue water. My mother’s always saying that she moved us to America to have a better life, and I still haven’t figured out how Chapel Spring, Louisiana, is better than a white sandy beach. When we first moved here, I’d stare at the postcard and imagine my mother and father holding hands and standing with their feet in the water, but now I keep in my nightstand under a pile of old notebooks. What’s the point?”When Apple Yengko was younger, other children were not so outwardly judgmental about Apple being the only Asian-looking kid at school or about her having a heavily-accented mother who cooked differently. But now it is middle school, and many of Apple’s former friends are caught up in impressing boys and each other. No doubt their own insecurities make them feel that it’s a liability to hang with someone different, someone the not-so-bright boys make fun of by claiming she’s a dog-eater, someone who isn’t beautiful in that stereotypical manner.Things might be different if this was a multicultural-rich metropolis, but Chapel Spring, Louisiana is anything but multicultural rich.On top of her problems with her peers, Apple’s immigrant mother won’t even discuss Apple’s obsessive desire to get a guitar and learn to play. In her mind, Apple figures that, like her dead hero George Harrison who left school to join The Beatles, Apple can escape Chapel Spring by becoming a great guitarist.After her friends abandon her, in the wake of Apple’s being listed on the “dog log” (the ugly girls list) that the boys compile, she becoming friends with a Evan, a newly-arrived California boy who sees the local unintellegencia for who they are, and with Heleena, the most despised girl at school--the fat girl--who turns out to be an incredible vocalist. Thanks to a music teacher’s generosity and the support of her new friends, Apple is able to at least make some of her dreams come true.BLACKBIRD FLY, which is a phrase from the McCartney song “Blackbird,” is a feel-good, there-is-a-better-way book in the same vein as James Howe’s THE MISFITS.For instance, when a so-called “beautiful” girl is traumatized by being put on the boys’ “hot” list and then having a lot of hormonal boys falsely claiming that they got to “make out” with her, it reminded me of Joe’s cousin Pam in THE MISFITS. "And in the end, the love you takeIs equal to the love you make."-- Paul McCartneyReading BLACKBIRD FLY made me feel really happy.Richie Partington, MLISRichie's Picks http://[email protected]://www.facebook.com/richie.parti...Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_... http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...

I was fortunate enough to recently receive an ARC of Blackbird Fly. This is a middle grade must read. I not only fell in love with the main character Apple Yenko, but also with the way the writer approached each character. Erin Entrada Kelly has a real sense of the way preteens view the world. She is one of the few that hasn't forgotten. I think her young readers may see her as a friend, much in the same way as those of my generation saw Judy Blume.

This is the story of middle schooler Apple Yengko. She and her mother emigrated from the Philippines after her father's death when Apple was four. She is the only Filipino in her Southern Louisiana middle school. And middle school is one of her main problems. Middle school can often be a time of casual cruelty when every kid wants to be just like all the other kids and every kid is sure that everyone is watching them all the time. It can be especially cruel if a kid is outside of the norm in some way. Apple's best friend Alyssa has bought into the myth and is determined to have a boyfriend and be one of the popular crowd. When Apple finds herself on the Dog List - the list of the ugliest girls in school - Alyssa dumps her in a very cruel manner.Apple wants to be a musician. She is a huge fan of the Beatles and wants to play the guitar like George Harrison. However, her mother refuses to get her a guitar and wants her to concentrate on her schoolwork and getting a good education. Americanized Apple is sometimes embarrassed by her mother who still speaks with an accent, still cooks Filipino foods, and still spouts her Filipino values. Apple's attitude starts to change when she meets a new boy in school from California named Evan Temple. Evan isn't swept up in the middle grade desire to be life everyone else. He accepts her just like she is and doesn't want her to change. Well, except maybe, to stop letting the crowd influence her. Apple also gets a chance to get to know another girl on the Dog List. Helena has been hiding the fact that she has an amazing voice. I felt all of Apple's pain as she tried to make a place for herself in her middle school. I also felt a lot of happiness when I saw her deciding to stop letting the crowd set her value.Middle graders - misfits or not - will see a lot they recognize in Apple's story.

Apple just doesn’t fit in. Her Filipino mother cooks food that no American kids eat. Plus she is so strict that Apple isn’t allowed to take any music classes at school because it might impact her other more important grades. Apple though desperately wants to learn to play the guitar. When they left the Philippines, she took just one picture and a tape of the Beatles that had belonged to her dead father. Apples does have friends, but once they discover that she is on the Dog Log, a list of the ugliest girls at school, they stop hanging around with her. Apple decides to start saving up for a guitar and as she does that she starts to make new friends, other kids that have been singled out as odd or different. But one misstep with a teacher’s wallet marks Apple as a thief and that is all it takes for her former friends to really turn against her. Apple has to figure out how being different can actually be a very good thing.This tween novel has a strong mix of a multicultural main character combined with middle school popularity and racism. Kelly does not flinch away from the blatant racism that teenagers can engage in as well as the casual hate that they throw at each other, particularly kids who are different from them. Kelly’s writing has a friendly, straight-forward tone even as she deals with the drama of both middle school and a parent who is over protective. Using music as a language that bridges new friendships and new understandings works particularly well and serves as a backbone for the entire novel.Apple is a character with lots going on in her life. She faces racism on a daily basis at school and in turn takes it out on her mother, turning her back on much of their Filipino culture. She is embarrassed by her mother and angry at her lack of support for Apple’s musical dreams. As Apple puts together a misguided plan to run away, readers will hope that she finds a way to live in the life that she already has, particularly because they will see how special she is long before Apple can realize it herself.A great tween read, this book offer complexity and diversity in a story about individuality and friendship. Appropriate for ages 10-13.

5 Platypires for Blackbird Fly I first heard about Blackbird Fly from the We Need Diverse Books blog and then my book club picked it to read. Oh how much I freaking loved this book. As a child of an immigrant I was able to relate to Apple in so many way. I just felt a deep connection and I believe others would feel the same way. Erin Entrada Kelly truly captured what its liked to be in middle school and trying to navigate the social structures within it. Oh the flashbacks. I felt I knew each character in the book in real life and could match them up with someone I once knew. Plus The Beatles music was an added bonus. Overall the was just a great book. I would recommend this book for children and adults.

A beautiful and quick-reading story about a girl who learns to embrace her ethnic identity and focus on the inner beauty of those around her. We see this theme frequently, but Kelly handles it skillfully and focuses on a background (heroine and her mom are Filipinas) we don't see often in youth literature.

Just wonderful.

I ADORE this book. It's such a great, contemporary middle-grade read--that time when friends and friendships change, when boys become BOYS, when you're so self-aware and also so not aware--it's all handled so perfectly. I related to the sense of being different, the feeling of wanting to spend those years in a hole, to grow up quickly, to escape the now. This is a book full of hope. It reminded me of what it's like to be this age--the bad and the really, really good pain of growing up. Also, the last chapter was perfect.

This was the first Filipino American MG novel I've ever read, and I loved it! As someone who was born in the Philippines but grew up mostly in the US, I really connected with Apple. The story is also well-written and full of heart!

My thanks to Libro.fm for providing this title to me as an educator. The print copy has been out for a while, but I’m grateful that the audiobook is now available. Twelve-year-old Apple feels so different from all her friends — trying to balance between her Filipino mom thinking she’s “too American” to her feeling not American enough when comparing her home life to her friends’ lives. When a group of boys at school make a Dog Log (list of “ugly” girls), Apple discovers she’s in the top 5. But it makes her take a look at the other girls who are near the top of the list, as well. That’s when Apple begins to realize she’s been enabling one of her friends to bully others. She might not have been saying the mean things, but by remaining silent she was supporting the behaviors. Her new friend, Evan, really stole the show in this book. He really shook things up being so confident, but also understanding.I jotted down a few quotes I want to remember from this one:“When you say something out loud, it makes it a big truth. Best to keep it in your mind and keep it small.”“The music switched tempo and I heard a laugh from far away. It was a happy laugh, like someone had just told a hilarious joke. Not a mean one. I wish I was standing next to that person, whoever it was.”“Sometimes, when you have pain, that’s what you have to do — just keep playing until it goes away.”“I wasn’t mean like Alyssa, but I’d stood there silently. In some ways, maybe that’s worse.”“She tried to say more, but the crowd swallowed her up and she disappeared into it. I realized that’s how she’d always be, going where the crowd goes and then getting lost.”In this story, Apple comes full circle, eventually realizing the value in traits that others deem worthless — from the foods she eats to the friends who keep her company. I truly hope everyone finds a friend like Evan. He’s such a decent human being (and not afraid to stick up for others). He turned my “like” of this story to my “love” of this story!Aaaaaand since so much of this story centers around Apple learning to play Blackbird — I can’t share my reaction to this book without also sharing a link to my daughter, at age 16, playing Blackbird. She has a “musician” page on Facebook, so feel free to check it out: Brayla playing Blackbird For more children's literature, middle grade literature, and YA literature reviews, feel free to visit my personal blog at The Miller Memo!!