WINGS

In book three of the "Bromeliad," the nomes recover their spaceship and leave Earth. At the end of Diggers (p. 109), Gemma and the other nomes, trapped in a quarry surrounded by hostile humans, were saved by the appearance of an enormous spaceship. Wings is a flashback in which Masklin, Grunder, and Angalo sneak aboard a Concorde bound from London to Miami and make their way to within hailing distance of the space shuttle so that Thing can subvert its communication ports to summon their spaceship, which has been stored on the moon for thousands of years. In the process, they meet a band of wild homes and are told that the world harbors thousands more. Gemma and Masklin leave for the stars; Grunder stays behind to communicate with humans and the other nomes. There is something a bit affected about naming a series after an orchid that harbors a colony of tiny frogs that leave their flower only when they outgrow it. Norton's Borrowers were entrancing, resourceful, and convincing; in comparison, nomes are naive, clumsy, and unlikely. Wings is resolutely earthbound, and while Pratchett can be wildly funny in his adult books, he seems tentative here. Still, young readers who liked the earlier volumes will want to read this one. (Fiction. 10+)