Langton prefaces The Fledgling with a quotation from Thoreau that describes Georgie, who has grown up with nature, aloof from the society of men. Georgie, the youngest character in The Fledgling, is the person most able to live in nature, talk with the Goose Prince, learn to fly, and see the world in the rubber ball he gives her as a present. The older characters have grown apart from nature. Miss Prawn plants plastic flowers, and Mr. Preek mistakes the Goose Prince for a giant duck and later decides to shoot the bird.

Georgie, on the other hand, is part of nature; she is part of the divine unity of the universe Thoreau emphasized.

Uncle Freddy sees this unity, and he mentions that she is friends with the birds, the squirrels, the flowers, and the trees, although he is puzzled by Georgie's being a...