After many years pass, Jonathan has lived a long but solitary life. Jonathan had hoped to share his new flight methods with the Flock, and show them how different methods of flight would make it even easier to find fruitful food sources in the ocean, but resignedly accepts that he will be a loner for the rest of his life. That night, when Jonathan rejoins his Flock up on the beach, he is called into the center of a Council meeting and singled out for Shame by the Elder Gull before being Outcast and banished to the distant Far Cliffs. After he experiences a breakthrough in flight, though, and successfully executes a complicated dive from a height of five thousand feet, he is more determined than ever to devote his life to studying flight. He struggles with being different-he is sad to disappoint his parents, and he briefly considers trying hard to be just another member of the Flock. Jonathan, however, loves practicing airborne acrobatics and testing the limits of his speed and form.

Most gulls only know the “simplest facts of flight,” and use flight as a utilitarian mode of transportation and as a way to get food. Nonetheless, this is a spirituality classic, and an especially engaging parable for adolescents.Jonathan Livingston Seagull is different from the other birds in his Flock. The dreamy seagull photographs by Russell Munson provide just the right illustrations-although the overall packaging does seem a bit dated (keep in mind that it was first published in 1970). Ultimately, he learns the meaning of love and kindness. (At one point our beloved gull is even banished from his flock.) By not compromising his higher vision, Jonathan gets the ultimate payoff: transcendence. Ultimately this is a fable about the importance of seeking a higher purpose in life, even if your flock, tribe, or neighborhood finds your ambition threatening.

For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.' Flight is indeed the metaphor that makes the story soar. 'For most gulls it is not flying that matters, but eating. 'Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight-how to get from shore to food and back again,' writes author Richard Bach in this allegory about a unique bird named Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Jonathan seagull