A reader’s guide
Maksym and Kateryna
In a Ukrainian village, Olena names her brother’s little plane Sparrow. Maksym wants to know what its camera can see across the river. His sister wants to know whether it can find their father. The space between those two questions is where these comics begin.
Start with The First Flight and follow the numbered issues in order. Each English issue is a 52-page, fixed-layout EPUB, NZ$6.99.
The First Flight
Olena calls the little plane Sparrow. When Maksym fits it with a camera and flies it over the river, he brings back a picture a soldier needs. At home, his little sister has a question the picture can’t answer.
Explore the bookThe Broken Convoy
The sounds of invasion wake the village. Maksym’s family sets out together, but the convoy breaks apart. On the road west, looking after his little sister becomes the most important thing he can do.
Explore the bookThe Boy Who Fixed the Radio
Underground, children need to know which entrance to use. Maksym gets a radio working in time to guide them. Then Iryna takes a closer look at his repair and shows him the part that might still let them down.
Explore the bookThe False Birthday
As Maksym takes on more demanding work with small aircraft, he loses a machine and gives a birthday that isn’t his. A machine can be replaced. What will it take to put the lie right?
Explore the bookThe Stranger in the Crosshairs
Maksym has seen a face on a screen. In an orchard, he meets the person behind it. As his path crosses Kateryna’s, a cup of tea made from snow gives two strangers a moment to see each other clearly.
Explore the book
What Sparrow can see
Watch Maksym’s thumb on the controls, then turn the page and look at the photograph his plane brings home. You get to study the same evidence he does. A younger reader and an adult reading together can point to the same detail and come away with different ideas about what it means.
Maksym brings home a photograph that matters to the soldiers. He has also left his little sister waiting. Both things are true, and he owes Olena an honest answer. Later, Kateryna has to decide what she owes a stranger in her sights. That is where courage, compassion and restraint enter these stories, in the moment one person has power over another and must choose how to use it.
The comics adapt Stuart Corlett’s Maksym Kovalenko novels. The opening issues follow The Unbroken Sky.
A few things to know
Which novel do the first issues follow?
The story opens in The Unbroken Sky, the first Maksym Kovalenko novel.
How do I read a comic?
Open the EPUB in an app that supports fixed-layout books, such as Apple Books. The lettering and artwork stay together on each page.