Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Book "Talon, On The Wing" by Gigi Sedlmayer

About the Book: What Matica has dreamed ever since she first befriended the condors is actually happening.
And now the adventures begin.
Finally accepting Matica into their community because of an incredible event, the people from the village love seeing her with Talon and demand she tell them about her adventures with the condors.
Matica is now happy to be small because she can do what she has always dreamed of – fly. She is accepted and loved, and because she is so small can have incredible adventures with her beloved Talon. In the meantime, her friendship with Amos continues to grow...
In this book, she has scores of adventures and near disasters with Talon.

About the Author: Gisela (Gigi) Sedlmayer was born on 19 May 1944 in Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin in Germany.
Her family escaped to the West just before the infamous wall went up. They moved around in Germany until finally settling in Munich where Gigi studied architectural drafting and met Albert in 1965, marrying in December 1967. She worked as a civil draftsperson in various private consultancies in Munich.
Since her uncle was a writer, she tried to write short animal stories herself. Nothing further came of it, but she developed a love for the written word and started to consume books.
In May 1975, Gigi and her husband moved to New Zealand. Because of language challenges, she started a handicraft business. As a specialty, she made colourful parrots of which she sold thousands in a few years.
In 1988, they decided to adopt and became adoptive parents of twin girls the year after. They lived in New Zealand for eighteen years and moved to Australia in September 1992.
Two years later Gigi was diagnosed with cancer. After operations and radiation, she withdrew, thinking that she would probably soon be dead, like her friend who died of cancer, but her two little girls gave her the courage to keep going. After a few years, still among the living, her brain started to work again, so she thought, 'Get a grip on yourself and do something good with your life'.
She remembered the time she wrote short stories and got inspired again, seeing her husband Albert writing the story of their adoption. Her English became increasingly better so she pressed on to develop her creative writing.
Albert taught her how to use a computer and she wrote many short stories. She entered them in competitions and often got very good reports back, which gave her confidence to go on writing. One day the idea for the TALON series came to her and she spent the next several years bringing the story and the characters to life.
She now loves writing and spends most of her time at the computer, developing new story lines. She also loves traveling, 4x4 touring, swimming, gardening, handcrafting, reading, fossicking and enjoys good adventure DVD's or going to the movies.

My Review: The author did an incredible job bringing to life lovely characters and scene descriptions that will stimulate your imagination and will make you cheer for our little heroine of this story. From the first book of this series, "Talon, Come Fly with Me", we learnt that Matica is a young child that is small in size for her age and because of that she is not well accepted in her community. The only friends she can make are two condors. With the help of her father, she manages to save the condors' egg that was being searched by poachers and bring it to her care until it hatches (and there you have Talon!). The bound between Matica and the condors is very special and with that she starts being accepted in the community, as they respect her care for the birds. In this second book, the author describes many adventures lived by Matica and Talon, as well as the development of her friendship with Amos and the rest of the tribe. There are plans for a short travel in the near future and a long travel to Australia later. New characters are introduced in the story and the topic about acceptance is reinforced. The author is a superb storyteller and I recommend this book to the permanent library of all readers that appreciate a well written story that will keep you entertained for hours.
I received a copy of his book from the author for reviewing, and I was not requested to provide a positive review. Opinion expressed here is my own.

If you read this reveiw, feel free to write a comment.

No comments:

Post a Comment