Skydragon 6 – Rescue Flight

Anh Do's Rescue Flight is a fast, big-hearted superhero adventure for 8 year olds about a girl who can command insects and flies off to save the rarest bird in the world.

What happens

Amber can feel every insect around her. She sees them as little flares of purple, and when she asks, they come. Swarms of them can even carry her into the sky, which is how she becomes the masked hero Skydragon.

At an airport, Amber sees a news report about the Rainbow Parrot. Someone has photographed one on Bird Island in the South Pacific, but an oil company is about to start drilling there. If the parrot has gone, the drilling goes ahead. Amber decides her powers are meant for nature, and she talks Irene into getting on the next plane.

It's a race against the clock. There's a gruff wildlife photographer who needs one clear picture of a breeding pair in forty-eight hours. There's a bounty on the parrots, which means trappers with nets and dart guns are swarming over the island. And a government agent, Ferris, is still hunting Skydragon.

What your reader will love is watching Amber work out what her bugs can do. Ants lower an injured woman down a cliff. Wasps chase off a pushy news crew. Fire ants run up a trapper's sleeve and make him very sorry he grabbed her!

There's a funny running joke too. Amber keeps trying to copy the parrot's call ("ooorrrrrrrWHIPwhipWHIP") and gets told she sounds like a vacuum cleaner, then a lawnmower with hiccups.

It's got a lovely message, gently done. Amber cares about the creatures and places she's protecting, and so do the grown-ups who help her. Children who love animals and worry about the planet will feel very at home.

A small heads-up. The action includes tranquilliser darts, one of which hits Amber, and a parrot gets shot with one too. Nothing gory, but a real animal-lover may hold their breath.

What to read next

This isn't Amber's first adventure. If they want more of her, try Brave the Storm, an earlier Skydragon story where a knock on the head takes her powers away and she heads into a rainforest to find them again.