Kite Flier by Dennis Haseley (1986) I picked up because David Wiesner painted the illustrations. I saw that this story gave Wiesner an opportunity to create his magical creatures as kites. The story has a cyclical structure: father tutors son, then son follows in the footsteps of his father. We can infer that when the first page of the story says the father traveled far from home, the son will also travel far from home in the end. The father marries and builds magnificent kites. Fortunately, they live on a hill in the countryside with lots of uninterrupted airspace in which to fly Wiesner’s enormous insects, fish, and flowers. As if on cue, the son's mother dies at birth, leaving the father to entertain his son with kites. Of course, children grow and separate from their parents. And so it is that after years of teenage angst, the son moves far away. But first, together, they build a huge bird kite. The only kite the father does not reel back in. He sets it free.
