Mail-Order Wings by Beatrice Gormley

I read this book as a child, and for some reason it came back to me very vividly a week or two ago and I decided to try and find it. Fortunately, it was available at the library last night and was a quick enough read that I'd finished it by early afternoon today.

Mail-Order Wings is about a nine-year-old bird lover named Andrea who finds an offer she can't resist on the back of a creepy comic book - for a mere $5.98 she can get her very own pair of wings and fly just like the birds she spends hours watching from her window and the local bird sanctuary. Andrea is old enough to realize that this is probably a scam, but she still can't resist sending off a money order and putting the kit together once it arrives. To her delight, she finds that the wings actually work and she tries her best to learn how to use them in secret. Naturally, though, there is a catch to this wonderful experience and it turns out to be a particularly nasty catch.

Mail-Order Wings makes for a pleasant enough read -- I'm not going to gush and rave about it, but it was a nice trip down memory lane. Now, where has my old dog-eared copy of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing gotten to...