Review of Raymie Nightingale, by Kate DiCamillo

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

raymie_nightingale_largeRaymie Nightingale

by Kate DiCamillo

Candlewick Press, 2016. 263 pages.
Starred Review

No one does quirky like Kate DiCamillo.

And her quirky, unique, like-no-other characters are all the more real that way.

Raymie Clarke has a plan. She wants to win Little Miss Central Florida Tire by learning to twirl a baton. Then her father will see her picture in the paper and come back from wherever he ran off to with the dental hygienist.

At baton-twirling lessons, taught by Ida Nee, a former champion of multiple contests, Raymie meets Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski. Louisiana also wants to become Little Miss Central Florida Tire, but Beverly wants to sabotage the contest.

First, they have very short-lived lessons together. Ida Nee doesn’t waste her time with lollygaggers and malingerers or fainters.

But the girls start helping each other out. Raymie needs her library book on Florence Nightingale rescued from under a bed in a nursing home. (Now there’s a story!) And Louisiana wants to rescue her cat Archie from the Very Friendly Animal Center.

All the adults they encounter along the way are quirky as well. Raymie’s mother is still mourning her father’s loss. Louisiana’s grandmother is an adventurous driver. Different adults in Raymie’s life offer her different kinds of comfort about her father’s abandonment.

All the quirks make the story feel true. You end up loving these three girls and rooting for them as they stumble through as best they can, trying to follow a Bright and Shining Path. Together.

katedicamillo.com
candlewick.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Anna and the Swallow Man, by Gavriel Savit

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

anna_and_the_swallow_man_largeAnna and the Swallow Man

by Gavriel Savit

Random House Children’s Books, 2016. 232 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. I read this book on the first half of a flight to Portland, and sat stunned when I’d finished at just how rich and beautiful this novel is.

It’s a World War II story, so some awful things happen. It’s listed as a children’s book, but here’s a heads’ up for parents that it’s a book about war, and most of the bad things happen off stage, but there are some bad things that happen. Personally, I’d rather give the book to teens than children. (And by the end of the story, Anna is a young teen.)

There’s not really a moral to the story, but it’s beautiful. Memorable, luminescent, and beautiful.

How does Gavriel Savit do it? One of the things he does is taking a unique character and then drawing wise conclusions about life.

We meet Anna on November 6, 1939 — the day her father, a university professor, was required to attend a meeting that ultimately ended in his being taken to a concentration camp. She is seven years old.

Anna’s father was a professor of linguistics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and living with him meant that every day of the week was in a different language. By the time Anna had reached the age of seven, her German, Russian, French, and English were all good, and she had a fair amount of Yiddish and Ukrainian and a little Armenian and Carpathian Romany as well.

Her father never spoke to her in Polish. The Polish, he said, would take care of itself.

One does not learn as many languages as Anna’s father had without a fair bit of love for talking. Most of her memories of her father were of him speaking — laughing and joking, arguing and sighing, with one of the many friends and conversation partners he cultivated around the city. In fact, for much of her life with him, Anna had thought that each of the languages her father spoke had been tailored, like a bespoke suit of clothes, to the individual person with whom he conversed. French was not French; it was Monsieur Bouchard. Yiddish was not Yiddish; it was Reb Shmulik. Every word and phrase of Armenian that Anna had ever heard reminded her of the face of the little old tatik who always greeted her and her father with small cups of strong, bitter coffee.

Every word of Armenian smelled like coffee.

When Anna’s father doesn’t return, she begins following the Swallow Man, but is instructed not to draw attention to herself. When I read this passage, I realized that this is one of those books that is wonderful because of the universal wisdom. It’s got particular, unique characters, but universal wisdom:

Anna very much wanted to avoid attention, and it was not long before she discovered the trick of doing so. A well-fed little girl in a pretty red-and-white dress immediately raises alarm if her face is covered with concern and effort, if she strains to see what is far ahead of her, if she moves only in fits and starts — and this was precisely what her present labor required her to do. At one intersection, though, she felt certain she had seen Monsieur Bouchard, her father’s old French friend, in the street ahead, and suddenly, impulsively, abandoning all effort of following the tall stranger, she smiled and ran gleefully toward the familiar man.

In the end he was not Monsieur Bouchard, but the effect of this burst of glee was immediately apparent to her. When she passed through the street hesitantly and with concern, the grown-ups who saw her seemed to latch on to her distress, trying to carry it off with them despite themselves, and the strain of the effort would cause a kind of unwilling connection between the adult and the child until they were out of one another’s sight. For the most part Anna felt certain that their intentions were good, but it seemed only a matter of time before someone stopped her, and then she did not know what might happen.

On the other hand, when she ran through the street with a smile of anticipation, passing adults still took notice, but they did not try to carry off her joy with them — instead it engendered a kindred kind of joy inside of them, and well satisfied with this feeling, particularly in the eternally threatening environment of a military occupation, they continued on their way without giving her a moment’s thought.

It was with joy, then, and not concern, that she followed the thin man past the guards at the outskirts of the city — they didn’t give her a second glance — and by the time Anna was alone in the twilit hills, this effort of counterfeiting happiness had brought to bear a true sort of excitement within her.

You read that and realize that this is true. This would work.

So universality and particularity combine with lovely language — and the result is this amazing book.

It’s a war story, and doesn’t really have an obvious moral, though there are certainly morals you can pull out of it. I’m not crazy about the ending, and some terrible things happen along the way, things that will wrench your heart.

But this book is truly beautiful. Everyone should read this book. When you’ve done so, please tell me what you think!

gavrielsavit.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Ada’s Violin, by Susan Hood and Sally Wern Comport

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Creativity, Cross Cultural, Historical, Starred Review 0

adas_violin_largeAda’s Violin

The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay

by Susan Hood
illustrated by Sally Wern Comport

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, New York, 2016. 40 pages.
Starred Review

This picture book tells the story of Ada Rios, who grew up living in the main garbage dump of Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay. Her family worked in the landfill as a recycler, finding trash they could sell.

One day Favio Chavez came to town, offering music lessons for the children of the town, Cateura. There weren’t enough musical instruments to go around — so they made instruments out of recycled materials they found in the landfill.

They formed an orchestra, and Ada practiced hard. They performed concerts and ended up being able to travel around the world, even performing at a Metallica concert.

The picture book tells the story simply enough for children. Material at the back fills in the details for adults, complete with YouTube links.

Music and creativity combined with time and dedication brought music and new life to the children of Cateura.

The last paragraphs of the Author’s Note at the back is filled with hope:

Money from the orchestra’s concerts goes back to Cateura to help families rebuild their homes, their music school, and their lives. “Not too long ago we purchased a piece of land where we will build houses for fifteen orchestra families,” said Chavez. “Ada has a new house there.” This land is out of the flood zone. These families will never again have to face the evacuations that displace Cateura villagers every year when the river rises.

What started as a music class for ten kids has swelled to orchestral rehearsals for two hundred students, with more than twenty-five instructors. Chavez quit his ecology job to work with the orchestra full-time. Now plans are afoot to use the Recycled Orchestra’s experiences as a model to help other children living on landfills around the world.

recycledorchestracateura.com
susanhoodbooks.com
sallycomport.com
simonandschuster.com/kids

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Miracle Man, by John Hendrix

Biography, Christian, Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

miracle_man_largeMiracle Man

The Story of Jesus

by John Hendrix

Abrams Books for Young Readers, New York, 2016. 44 pages.
Starred Review

This is a picture book telling about the life of Jesus Christ, done by an accomplished picture book illustrator.

Now, I personally am not completely crazy about the book, since I have my own conception of Jesus’ story, and there’s some necessary simplification. For example, he gives Andrew’s lines to Peter (the only disciple named in this book, besides Judas) in the story of the feeding of the five thousand.

But the more I look at this book, the more it’s growing on me. John Hendrix makes the characters in the story look like Jews. Jesus looks tough, and his clothes are a little ragged. But the most interesting feature is that he makes the words of Jesus part of the art and larger than life.

The author introduces Jesus like this:

On a day that didn’t seem at all unusual, there came an unusual Man. He looked like any other man, but he was like none who had ever lived before. This Man was God’s son. When he spoke, his words made things happen. His words came . . . ALIVE

[ALIVE is spelled out by butterflies in the illustration.]

The stories told about Jesus include calling the disciples and the miraculous catch of fish, healing a leper, healing the paralytic (after his friends broke through the ceiling), and calming the sea. I especially like the author’s paraphrase of Jesus’ words after he stops the storm:

I am the Son of the living God who made the water and the winds. Did you forget who was in your boat?

The story goes on with the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water, including Peter walking on the water. (“Peter, have faith in my feet, not your own.”) Then we come to the Last Supper and Judas’ betrayal.

The crucifixion is mainly alluded to — very tastefully done for a picture book — one page with Jesus carrying the cross and then a grand scene with the heartbroken disciples, and the women in a corner with Jesus’ body, and the very walls of Jerusalem seeming to say, “It seemed the miracles had COME TO AN END.”

Then we have a spread from inside the empty tomb, graveclothes on a ledge, and Jesus outside in the light looking at a butterfly.

But God’s Son, Jesus, the Miracle Man,
had in store one last glorious miracle . . .

I haven’t seen another book about Jesus’ life quite like this one. The word that comes to mind is Majestic.

The Author’s Note at the back explains why John Hendrix wanted to tell this story. I liked hearing that he was fascinated as a child by the words of Jesus in red in his Bible.

You may have heard about the life of Jesus many times before, but my hope is to share the familiar story with you in a new way. Perhaps the best way to experience the Easter story is to momentarily forget about the trappings of religion around it and see the man at the center. In my experience, the story changes when we think of the people who experienced Jesus in person during the time he walked among us. Those people didn’t have a steepled church building or know anything about Christian theology. They simply met a man, some of them for only a brief moment, and they were changed forever.

Most of all, the author’s love for the Miracle Man shines through. This book is a wonderful way to tell children about Him.

johnhendrix.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

war_that_saved_my_life_largeThe War that Saved my Life

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
read by Jayne Entwistle

Listening Library, 2015. 7.5 hours on 6 compact discs.
Starred Review
2016 Newbery Honor Book
2016 Odyssey Award Winner
2016 Schneider Family Award Winner

I always try to listen to the Odyssey Award winner, since it is given to the best children’s or young adult audiobook of the year. This year, the winner was also a Newbery Honor book and a Schneider Family Award winner, so I already knew it was something special. First, I got to listen to Echo, which was also a Newbery Honor book but the only Odyssey Honor audiobook. It was so good, it was hard to imagine an audiobook being chosen above it.

Even with that much build-up, when I listened to The War that Saved my Life, I was not at all disappointed. This was one of the few audiobooks that, when I got to the last CD, I brought the book into the house to finish listening, rather than wait until the morning and my next trip to work. It was way too good to wait!

I should say a word about the narrator, Jayne Entwistle. I’ve listened to other books she’s read, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place and >As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust. I always enjoy her distinctive voice. Now, I do enjoy almost all English accents, but Jayne Entwistle does an excellent precocious little girl. And she does a fine job making the voices of the various characters distinctive. In this case, she didn’t need to do as many voices as in The Scandalous Sisterhood, and she put just the right character into each of the voices she did portray.

The story in The War that Saved my Life is heart-wrenching. The story is told by Ada Smith. She’s got a club foot, though at the beginning of the book, she doesn’t know that’s what it’s called. She only knows that her foot is disgusting, according to her Mam, and she’s not to let anyone see her. She must stay in their one-room apartment in London.

It’s bearable for Ada when she has her little brother Jamie to watch over. But as Jamie’s getting old enough to go to school, he’s also old enough to start playing outside. Ada’s heart is torn being alone in the apartment. So she decides to teach herself to walk.

Not long after, they learn that London children are going to be evacuated to the country because bombs will be coming from Hitler. Mam hasn’t decided if she’ll send Jamie. Ada asks about herself.

Mam still didn’t look at me. “Course not. They’re sending kids to live with nice people. Who’d want you? Nobody, that’s who. Nice people don’t want to look at that foot.”

“I could stay with nasty people,” I said. “Wouldn’t be any different than living here.”

I saw the slap coming, but didn’t duck fast enough. “None of your sass,” she said. Her mouth twisted into the smile that made my insides clench. “You can’t leave. You never will. You’re stuck here, right here in this room, bombs or no.”

All of that happens in the first two chapters.

But Ada decides then and there that she will leave with Jamie. Her Mam doesn’t know she can walk, and Ada steals Mam’s shoes and sneaks out with Jamie to get there early on the day the children are evacuated.

Once they’re in the country, Ada and Jamie are indeed the last ones picked. The “iron-faced” woman in charge takes them to the home of Susan Smith. Susan doesn’t want children. She is mourning the loss of her “very dear friend” Becky, who lived with her and kept horses.

There’s still a pony named Butter out in the field, and Ada is fascinated with it. The story that follows shows us clearly how Ada’s life is saved. Susan’s and Jamie’s lives are changed along the way.

Words can’t adequately describe this book and how brilliantly the story is woven. The two short chapters at the beginning prepare us for how deprived Ada is, but it’s more fully revealed as she comes out of the room and copes with the country.

Here’s a bit from their ride on the train:

The buildings ended and suddenly there was green. Green everywhere. Bright, vibrant, astonishing green, floating into the air toward the blue, blue sky. I stared, mesmerized. “What’s that?”

“Grass,” Jamie said.

“Grass?” He knew about this green? There wasn’t any grass on our lane, nor nothing like it that I’d ever seen. I knew green from clothing or cabbages, not from fields.

Jamie nodded. “It’s on the ground. Spikey stuff, but soft, not prickly. There’s grass in the churchyard. Round the headstones. And trees, like that over there.” He pointed out the window.

Trees were tall and thin, like stalks of celery, only giant-sized. Bursts of green on top. “When were you in a churchyard?” I asked. What’s a churchyard? I might have asked next. There was no end to the things I didn’t know.

Later on, it seems utterly realistic that, rather than being grateful, Ada gets frustrated and annoyed with all the things Susan tells her, full of words she doesn’t know. When Susan makes a beautiful dress for Ada for Christmas, she has a complete meltdown, unable to feel that something so nice can be for her.

But most of the book is filled with little victories. Ada learns to use crutches. She learns to care for Butter. She learns how to go among people and makes friends.

And the backdrop of all this is the war, which does come even to the countryside. And the looming question of what will happen when Ada has to go back?

This is a beautiful book. Even though I listened to it, I’m going to keep my Advance Reader Copy, because I am going to want to treasure Ada’s story again. I’m sure I’ll notice subtle emotional cues I didn’t catch the first time.

How can I tell children about this wonderful book? I may decide to play up the bombs and spies (Yes, they are both in there). This is ultimately a book about the value found in every person and how love can save your life.

kimberlybrubakerbradley.com
listeninglibrary.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Accidental Highwayman, by Ben Tripp

Fantasy, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

accidental_highwayman_largeThe Accidental Highwayman

Being the Tale of Kit Bristol, His Horse, Midnight, a Mysterious Princess, and Sundry Magical Persons Besides

by Ben Tripp
read by Steve West

Macmillan Audiobook from Tor, 2014. 10 hours on 9 discs.
Starred Review

I’ve meant to read this since it came out in 2014, and finally got around to it when it came out in audio form. (With thanks to my sister-in-law Laura for encouraging me to do so.) This was just as well, since the narrator is an outstanding reader and has a marvelous British accent, so it was a great listening choice.

As the subtitle tells us, this book tells the story of Kit Bristol, set in the 1700s in England. He’s the only servant of a reclusive aristocrat, and one day his master comes home having been shot. It turns out he was the famed Whistling Jack, and through one thing and another, Kit ends up taking up Whistling Jack’s commitment to help a princess fleeing an arranged marriage.

It turns out the princess is the daughter of the king of Faery, and he is power-hungry and wants to form an alliance with King George III. On top of that, there’s a soulless duchess after Princess Morgana and a vindictive redcoat obsessed with capturing Whistling Jack and seeing him hanged.

Kit and Princess Morgana go through an amazing variety of outlandish adventures. There were times when I couldn’t see how he could possibly survive (even knowing he must, since the story is told in first person).

The only thing wrong with the book? The story doesn’t end at a good place at all. Yes, part of their adventure does come to conclusion, but our two main characters are by no means safe and happy at the end. So that means I’ll be looking eagerly for the sequel.

This book is good for swashbuckling fun with fantasy. The narrator is wonderful, and this would also work for family listening. Kit does get into danger, but it’s young adult reading more because Kit is a young adult than because of any dark subject matter. Ben Tripp is also an illustrator, so having listened to the book it sounds like I missed out on illustrations, though at least I got to enjoy a British accent to make up for it.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Tucky Jo and Little Heart, by Patricia Polacco

Historical, Picture Book Review 0

tucky_jo_largeTucky Jo and Little Heart

by Patricia Polacco

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015. 48 pages.

This is another of Patricia Polacco’s tear-jerker touching true stories. This one’s about war, so it’s more for school-age kids, even though it is a richly illustrated picture book.

The story is told in the words of a man who fought as a youngster in World War II. It’s not completely grammatical, but it gives the flavor of his words with phrases like “faster than a scared jackrabbit” and “hit the eye out of a gnat.”

When stationed in the jungle, “Kentucky Jo” meets a little village girl, who tells him about a plant to put on his bug bites. He gets to know the girl, brings her food and toys, and eventually his troop adopts the whole village – until they have to be evacuated.

Well, the tearjerker part brings us to the present – when that little girl again shows up in Tucky Jo’s life when he’s an old man needing medical care.

It’s good Patricia Polacco tells us this is a true story, or we wouldn’t believe things had turned out so beautifully!

Although this is a story of war, and we do hear that Little Heart’s mother was killed by soldiers and her father and brother taken away, the author doesn’t dwell on gory details. Instead, she focuses on the heartwarming part of this little girl and her village in the jungle, providing a bright spot in the middle of war.

And in its lovely way, the book shows the lasting impact of love and good deeds.

PatriciaPolacco.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Newt’s Emerald, by Garth Nix

Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

newts_emerald_largeNewt’s Emerald

Magic, Maids, and Masquerades

by Garth Nix

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2015. 291 pages.
Starred Review

Garth Nix, author of Sabriel and other fantastic books, has written a Regency romance! With magic! (The romance is in a world with magic. I don’t think he actually wrote it with magic.)

Lady Truthful Newington is eighteen years old and soon to be launched into fashionable society in London. But on her birthday, her father gets out the famous Newington Emeralds, which she will inherit when she turns twenty-five, and a storm comes up and they are stolen.

Her father lapses into illness after the loss, blaming her cousins, the Newington-Lacys. Truthful knows they wouldn’t have done such a thing, but she can hardly investigate herself as a young female. However, when you have an aunt skilled with glamours, it’s possible to disguise yourself as a young male relative, who would of course be authorized to search for the emeralds.

Along the way in the search, she encounters a young man also on the trail of the thief. Of course there’s a problem that she’s not who she appears to be.

This book doesn’t have a complicated plot or romance. The magic is mostly light-hearted and about the appearances of things. But it’s definitely a fun story. If you like Regency romances (and who doesn’t enjoy one now and then?), the magic in this one adds some extra spice.

Here’s Truthful worrying about how she’ll do in London:

In London, Truthful felt sure she would be considered plain, particularly as her sorcerous talents did not include any particular skill with the glamours that would enhance her charms. Truthful had the small weather magic that ran in her family; she could raise a gentle breeze, or soothe a drizzle. In addition to this, horses and other animals liked her and would do her bidding. But she had none of the greater arts, and little formal training.

Truthful’s time in London ends up being much more interesting than merely balls, including peril on land and sea. But you can’t have a Regency Romance without balls, and this book is no exception.

garthnix.com
epicreads.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Tower of Thorns, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

tower_of_thorns_largeTower of Thorns

by Juliet Marillier

A Roc Book, 2015. 415 pages.
Starred Review

This is the second book about Blackthorn & Grim, and yes, you should read the books in order.

In Tower of Thorns, like the first book, there’s a mysterious enchantment that Blackthorn and Grim need to break. Along the way, we find out more about both of their painful pasts.

This series is set in ancient Ireland. Monks are around, but also Wee Folk and others of the fey. Blackthorn is a wise woman. She wants nothing else than to bring vengeance and justice to the chieftain who had her husband and baby killed. But she is under conditions given by the fey who set her free from prison to not seek vengeance for seven years — and to help anyone who asks her.

In this volume, there’s a lady who lives near a tower that has cast a blight on all the land around it. But she’s not telling Blackthorn the full story.

And while Blackthorn is working on that curse, she sees an old friend, whom she’d thought was dead. He says that he will be able to bring the evil chieftain to justice if she goes with him. But there’s no way she’s going to take Grim into danger, so the only answer is to lie to him. Or so she decides.

In this installment, we get more insight into what happened in Grim’s past. We see, though Blackthorn doesn’t, how strong the bond has grown between them.

Juliet Marillier’s writing is magical. I read this on my flight across the country, and had to continue until I’d finished.

Blackthorn and Grim are described as people dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. They have their own curses of flashbacks and have trouble trusting anyone, and certainly don’t claim to faith in God. But the reader cannot help loving them as they struggle on and try to do good in the world, in spite of themselves. The description of their journey is pitch perfect and brings the reader along with them. I can’t wait for the next installment! This is a wonderful series, even if I wasn’t quite as enthralled as I was with the first volume. That was mainly because most of the people they were dealing with weren’t nearly as good-hearted as those in the first book. But Blackthorn and Grim themselves are people I can’t hear enough about.

julietmarillier.com
penguin.com

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Source: This review is based on my own copy, purchased (and preordered) via Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of A School for Brides, by Patrice Kindl

Historical, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

school_for_brides_largeA School for Brides

A Story of Maidens, Mystery, and Matrimony

by Patrice Kindl

Viking, 2015. 251 pages.

A School for Brides is a sequel to the delightful Keeping the Castle, but is primarily dealing with totally new characters, so you can feel free to read this book without having read the first.

Like Keeping the Castle, this is a humorous and light-hearted tribute to regency romances. There’s a quotation taken from Jane Austen’s The Watsons at the front. The Watsons was unfinished, but is also the only Jane Austen book I haven’t read, so I don’t know if A School for Brides mirrors the plot of The Watsons the way Keeping the Castle mirrors the plot of Pride and Prejudice.

I read this at an unfortunate time, having recently finished two other girls’ boarding school books: The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, by Julie Berry, and As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, by Alan Bradley. And try as I might, I didn’t get too enthusiastic about yet another book with a large cast of characters and young ladies in a boarding school, so it took me a long time to read it.

But there is fun to be had here. We’re back in the delightfully-named village of Lesser Hoo, this time at a finishing school, the Winthrop Hopkins Female Academy. Girls have been sent there to find husbands. There’s one problem: No eligible men live anywhere near Lesser Hoo.

However, the problem is solved rather quickly when a gentleman suffers an accident near the academy, and must be taken there to recuperate. Of course his friends come to visit him in his convalescence, and couples happily pair off.

There are some surprises and obstacles. A wicked governess tries to interfere with one of the students, and some of the suitors are not so acceptable as one might wish. There is also a mystery, as promised in the subtitle, when a valuable necklace disappears. Is the thief the handsome footman, Robert, who is under suspicion simply because he’s a servant? Well, the reader will suspect not, but how then was the theft carried out?

Here is the beginning of the book:

“Mark my words. If something drastic is not done, none of us shall ever marry. We are doomed to die old maids, banished to the seat farthest from the fire, served with the toughest cuts of meat and the weakest cups of tea, objects of pity and scorn to all we meet. That shall be our fate, so long as we remain in Lesser Hoo,” said Miss Asquith.

Extravagant as Miss Asquith’s mode of expression was, her fellow scholars at the Winthrop Hopkins Female Academy could not help but feel that she had a point. They nodded in solemn agreement, and Miss Victor, who was only twelve, began to cry.

The other young ladies frowned and attempted to turn and regard Miss Victor with disapproval at her outburst. This was rendered difficult by the fact that all eight were bound to backboards, wooden devices that forced their necks and spines into an erect posture. The backboards required them to rotate their entire upper bodies when they wished merely to turn their heads.

This book gives you light-hearted romance, lots of couples, a ball, and missing jewels. Lots of fun.

patricekindl.com
penguin.com/teen

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