By Anna Daniels
Milena (Sellers) Phillips’ book “Always Fly Away” is not the work of someone who has made a career of writing books for children. This brightly illustrated book written for elementary school children is a reflection of how the author herself has come to understand the world as much as it is a children’s story.
“Always Fly Away” acknowledges the necessary transition that takes place when young children want to start exploring the world with an ever growing degree of independence. It also helps to develop the critical judgement that young children need to recognize when a situation doesn’t feel right and what to do when this happens.
Phillips spins a story that retains the joy and mystery of a child’s explorations while providing ways to assure that the exploration is as safe as possible. It is a remarkable story because she personally experienced the devastating death of her nine year old son Jonathan Sellers.
Jonathan and his friend Charlie Keever had left home for a quick bike ride in 1993. They were abducted and murdered in Imperial Beach. It would take close to a decade before their deaths were linked to Scott Erskine, who was sentenced to death.
This was a parent’s worst nightmare. And while the worst thing imaginable happens to very few children, the statistics don’t much matter if that is your own child. It is a testament to Phillip’s resiliency and deep humanity that she would ultimately craft a story with the intent of keeping another mother’s child safe and alive.
She wrote “Always Fly Away” with the assistance of long time friend Deborah Dorn and the illustrations of Katherine Johnson. The story begins with a young Stella the blue jay asking her mother’s permission to go out and play with a friend by the creek. Stella’s exuberance is palpable:
I fly out the window and soar down the lane-
My wings are stretched far, I fly fast as a plane!
I’m sailing and drifting, ’round curve and ’round bend
It’s so much fun—I wish this day would never end!
Stella starts to feel afraid when her friend does not meet her at the creek and she is instead approached by a stranger, Maurice the cat. He flashes Stella a friendly smile and asks her to help him find his missing collar back in the bushes. He also tells her that he has a big house filled with toys and lots of other birds having fun.
Stella feels an array of emotions in which uncertainty and fear are the strongest. But Phillips also astutely recognizes that children often experience competing emotions that cause them to minimize the sense of discomfort and danger.
Children, particularly young children, see adults as trustworthy. To varying degrees children are utterly dependent upon adults to provide for and protect them. Children are likewise encouraged to be polite and helpful to others. This is an important part of the socialization process into adulthood.
The smiling Maurice plays upon both the propensity for trust and kindness. And he also offers the irresistible— toys and lots of friends in his house.
Phillips is able to unknot those conflicting emotions, emphasizing that when a situation does not feel right, children should first and foremost exercise their own agency in getting away from the situation as quickly as possible, to always fly away. This is an essential part of being independent and too often overlooked when developing children’s life skills.
I kept my distance, stayed alert, and flew away.
When that cat tried to eat me, I knew I must kick, scream and fight,
Then fly away home with all of my might.
Phillips also recognizes the sobering truth that it is not always a stranger that puts a child’s life in danger. This is addressed in the Words to Learn addendum to the story. It is a guide for teachers and adults to explain words like “soar” and “secluded’. It also includes a description of who is a “stranger”.
Yes, a stranger can be a friend’s older sister or brother if you just met them. Yes, a stranger can be a man or woman of any age whom you have known for only a little while. Phillips emphasizes that “Being polite is important, but safety is more important”.
Our need to tell stories is a hallmark of our most basic humanity. Our stories entertain, heal, make sense of the universe and instruct. A consummate story teller’s voice rises from the pages of “Always Fly Away”.
Book performance and signing by Milena (Sellers) Phillips and Deborah Dorn
Tuesday April 26 10:30 am
San Diego Central Library
330 Park Blvd. San Diego 92101
Recommended children aged 3-12
Always Fly Away A Children’s Safety Book
Written by Milena (Sellers) Phillips with Deborah Dorn
Illustrated by Katherine Johnson
Reflective Publishing, 2015
If you’d like a performance at your school or community, please email ddorn@jsck.org
Anna Daniels
Latest posts by Anna Daniels (see all)
- Bob Dorn: Rest in Power! - December 3, 2018
- The Urgency of Transgender Safety, Legal Protections - November 27, 2018
- Chaos and Cruelty at the Border - November 26, 2018
Thank you for bringing this lovely story to life. I will never forget how those children went missing and were murdered. It’s so beautiful that one of the boy’s mom found a wonderful way to help other families with this story. Thank you again.
Thank you for introducing us to this exciting childrens author, Great insight and message even for adults.
This book should be in every classroom. I would also suggest parent read this book to their children and have a conversation about the story. I was not familiar with this book. You introduced us to a new book.
Thank you Anna for your sensitive article on Always Fly Away. We continue to enact the story for schools and community groups throughout San Diego free of charge. It’s exciting to see how well the kids get the message as they interact with the presenters (Maurice & Stella) following the show. If you’d like to invite us to your school or community, please email ddorn@jsck.org
It’s imapterive that more people make this exact point.
I could have been one of those statistics on a couple of occasions. Growing up in the country, people were just not aware of child abductions. One day a man drove by while I was mowing the lawn. I was about 10. He said he was shooting woodchucks (groundhogs) in the neighboring fields and wanted me to go retrieve one for him so he could see if his marksmanship had been accurate. I had the presence of mind to ask my mother first if I could go with him.
My mother never should have let me go, but people trusted even though he was not from around there, and we didn’t know him. So I got in his car and we crossed the creek since the woodchuck he wanted me to retrieve was on the other side of the creek. We stopped at a neighbor’s farm, and he agreed to allow me to “trespass”, to walk a mile or so down the creek to where the woodchuck had been shot. Due to my knowledge of the area, I was able to locate the woodchuck and haul it back for this man’s inspection.
Then he gave me some money for my efforts, and took me to an ice cream shop for a treat. While there he found out in conversation that my father was a rather prominent member of the community. I don’t know if that influenced his decision or not but he then dropped me off at home without incident.
In retrospect it was a scary and weird situation, but people were more trusting and eager to please in those days than they should have been.
Hi John, Thank you for sharing your story. There are so many others that did not end so well. We so often only think about the murdered children but many more were abducted and suffered terrible things and now to live with the memory. My hope is to reduce childhood trauma by giving practical everyday advice to kids. These are the same lessons that keep us safe as adults but told in a way kids can understand. There are so many fabulous adventures kids should and will have, but it is up to us to give them the skills to do it safely.
So happy to see this article. I read this little gem several months ago, and it still resonates. Strange, in an age of overly-protective parenting, how child abduction seems to be a topic presented in the ‘dire-warning’ mode, or not at all. This book offers a gentle adult voice speaking in a lyrical language that is reassuring and wise. Maybe only a mother with the author’s experience could have written it.
Honoring the lives of two young boys through proactive engagement is an amazing feat. It’s not every mother who could find a way to make something good come from something so unimaginably horrible. “Always Fly Away” is written very lyrically, with memorable characters that come to life at home reading to your kids or performed at an elementary school. I found it to be very instructive and easy to understand, a huge plus for all ages, especially younger kids who can be especially vulnerable. What a gift to have a book like this to share.