So begins the rise of Alexei Peshkov—soon to become Maxim Gorky, a writer, public figure, and a true rock star of his era. As a child, he catches siskins; as a youth, he delivers baskets of bread rolls—baskets that also carry secret notes, fluttering back and forth. Upon reaching adulthood, he begins to dream of the soaring of the human spirit and the birth of a new, winged individual. He becomes a writer, achieving astronomical circulation numbers for his work.

Illustrator and author Katya Gushchina was born and raised in Nizhny Novgorod; she attended a school just around the corner from the Kashirin House-Museum, where Gorky spent his childhood. Even then, she knew by heart the stories of young Gorky and his soaring, winged dreams. For the second installment in her series of graphic novels about Russian writers, Katya researched Gorky’s literary works, diaries, photographs, and accounts from his contemporaries—crafting a biography of her fellow townsman through a series of episodes involving flights, falls, and the restless longing of a bird trapped in a cage.

The book was a finalist in the second season of the ABCDbooks competition for illustrated non-fiction projects.