Written by Cedar Pruitt | Illustrated by Chiara Fedele
Capstone Editions (2024)
Humor, suspense and rich illustrations shape this incredible true story about an owl that flees a California forest fire by taking a ride inside a fire-fighting helicopter. The pilot took an incredible picture of the little flyer in the co-pilot seat – and it’s included in the book.
Named a Best Children’s Book of the Year by Bank Street College, Fire Flight is a lyrical nonfiction picture book perfect for ages 3-8, illustrated by Chiara Fedele and published by Capstone Editions (2024).
From the Publisher’s Weekly review: “Pruitt’s rhythmic lines narrate the unlikely but true story of an owl who escaped a California wildfire by hitching a ride in a helicopter. …A small gray owl must leave its forest perch, remaining airborne until spying a “fellow flyer” dropping water on the blaze….Skillful, onomatopoeic verse aptly summons the “beat, beat, beat” of wings, “chop, chop, chop” of helicopter blades, and “drip, drip, drop” of water. Fedele’s smudgy fire and smoke-filled artwork, meanwhile, has a frenzied quality that communicates the urgency of the situation. A kid-friendly account that simultaneously underscores the dangers of wildfire and the capacity of nature to surprise.“
Find Fire Flight: A Wildfire Escape in both paperback and hard cover in hundreds of libraries and independent bookstores, and everywhere books are sold, including online at: Bookshop.org | Indiebound | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Target
Copies of the hardcover are available on the Capstone website: https://shop.capstonepub.com/Shop/s/product/detail/01t4z00000Addn3AAB
Teachers, librarians, and administrators: Author Cedar Pruitt, M.Ed., is available to come to your school, library, conference, Family Literacy Night, book fair and much more! Click here for details.
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- Watch Cedar’s TV interview with journalist Mederios Babb on KSEE24 News in Fresno, CA
- Download the FREE Fire Flight Educator’s Guide right here
A Deeper Dive Into the Story
In October 2020, a little owl was in the path of a terrible forest fire raging through the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California.
What might make a reader curious when reading Fire Flight? Some of the things that I think about:
- I think about how those forests became so dry. After extreme drought brought on by climate change, the forests were able to burn easily and quickly. This fire, called the Creek Fire of 2020, burned for four months.
- What actions can we take to reduce the impact of climate change?
- What do you know about climate change?
- How does it make you feel?
- I think about how firefighting helicopters work, and what fire-fighting work happens on the ground and the air.
- How do you learn to pilot a firefighting helicopter?
- What do firefighters do to fight wildfires on the ground?
- I think about owls!
- Where do owls live?
- What do they eat?
- Have you ever heard an owl?
- What is special about Screech-Owls?
- I think about the connection between people and animals, and how important it is.
- What stories have you read in which people and animals have a special connection?
- Do you have any special connections with animals?
- I think about forests and how much I like being in one.
- Have you been in a forest?
- What do you like about them?
- What do you think the animals who live there like about forests?
- I think about news stories and headlines, and how they can be scary, or comforting, or both at the same time, like this story.
- What have you read in the news that makes you scared?
- How have you gotten over being scared?
- And I even think about what makes me feel safe, cozy, and protected.
- For me, it helps to be with people I trust, gentle animals, in calm places like a quiet forest or on a couch with a soft quilt.
- What makes you feel safe?
