However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along.

Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s her Groundling father appears to be a white human. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read. A first chapter book to charm both newly independent readers and their elders. The book's small format and Schindler's delicate illustrations add to the enchantment. After Alexander cajoles and hectors Jane into confronting her fears and describing them with her first real words, the Catwings agree: Alexander is 'wonderful.' Brief as it is, this is a deftly crafted bildungsroman. Enter youngest Catwing Jane, nearly mute because of an early trauma (her only words are 'Me' and 'Hate'), to take Alexander to her home-where his parents and 'Owner' turn out to be glad to let him stay. The cow who says 'Moo' instead of 'Mew' is unconcerned when he corrects her speeding trucks and rude dogs threaten when he bolts up a tree, he can't climb down and his doting parents don't turn up to help.

Alexander-'the biggest, the strongest, and the loudest'-has never noticed that his sisters are 'quite tired of him,' but when he sets out to explore the world he soon learns that his cocky preconceptions don't serve. The endearing winged cats who escaped the city to be cared for by two reliable country children (Catwings, 1988, etc.) make a third appearance in this tale of a self-important kitten from nearby who discovers that his true worth is not what he has supposed.

Wonderful alexander and the catwings