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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
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| 33607003612549 | New Juvenile Fiction | DICAMILLO | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
A New York Times bestseller!
"Kate DiCamillo's dazzling first title in the Norendy Tales trilogy is brimming with wit, whimsy, and heart as it follows five puppets fulfilling their thrilling shared destiny." - Shelf Awareness
Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five friends--a king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owl--bicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by the heart's mysteries. When at last their shared fate arrives, landing them on a mantel in a blue room in the home of two little girls, the truth is more astonishing than any of them could have imagined. A beloved author of modern classics draws on her most moving themes with humor, heart, and wisdom in the first of the Norendy Tales, a projected trio of novellas linked by place and mood, each illustrated in black and white by a different virtuoso illustrator. A magical and beautifully packaged gift volume designed to be read aloud and shared, The Puppets of Spelhorst is a tale that soothes and strengthens us on our journey, leading us through whatever dark forest we find ourselves in.
Author Notes
Kate DiCamillo is one of America's most beloved storytellers. She is a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and a two-time Newbery Medalist. Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Florida and now lives in Minneapolis.
Julie Morstad is the illustrator of numerous acclaimed books for young readers, including House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery by Liz Rosenberg, When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano, and Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova by Laurel Snyder. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A quintet of puppets--"the king and the wolf and the girl/ and the boy and the owl"--ponder their dreams and yearnings in this quietly entrancing novella told in three acts. Following the death of their owner, a regretful old sea captain called Spelhorst, the five puppets, said to be "in a story together," are bundled into their trunk, sold to a musical rag-and-bone man, and eventually given to sisters Martha and Emma. After one of the sisters arranges the puppets on the mantel and begins working to include them in a play, each puppet undergoes a brief adventure that speaks to their nature: a king longing to rule, a wolf preoccupied with her own sharp teeth, a watchful girl with violet eyes, a boy longing to "do a great deed," and a portentous owl with real feathers. Newbery Medalist DiCamillo applies spare prose and witty conversation in fleshing out the puppets' desires as well as exploring the power of stories to promote community and offer a path to fulfillment. Occasional pencil illustrations from Morstad (Time Is a Flower) elegantly portray the figures, whose skin reflects the white of the page. Ages 7--10. Author's agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. Illustrator's agent: Emily Van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary. (Oct.)
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One There was once an old sea captain who lived in a small room above a tailor shop. The captain's name was Spelhorst, and he had no wife, no children, no family. He was alone in the world and took his meals at a café down the street from the tailor shop. There, the old man would sit at a table and stare past everything and everyone as if he were on the prow of a ship, looking out to sea. One of the captain's eyes was clouded over with cataracts, but the other eye was a bright and astonishing blue. On good days, days when his knees did not ache and the weather was fine, Spelhorst walked around the city for hours at a time. On bad days, he stayed abed, staring at the ceiling, studying its cracks and water stains and spiderwebs. He listened to the door of the tailor shop as it opened and closed. He could hear the murmur of voices, the sound of people requesting things, demanding things. Sometimes he could hear the tailor shouting at his wife in Italian. Sometimes he could hear the tailor's wife weeping. The pigeons on the windowsill of Spelhorst's room looked in at the old man with bright, disdainful eyes. The birds arrived and departed and returned, and their wings sounded like someone shuffling a deck of cards. The sea captain paid the pigeons no mind. He did not even look in their direction. He kept his eyes on the ceiling. He tried to think of nothing at all. ** And then there came a day--a good day--when Spelhorst's knees did not ache and the weather was clear, and the old man walked and walked. He ended up very far from the tailor shop, in a part of the city that he did not know, in an alley that was dark and winding. He came upon a toy shop, and in the window of the shop, he saw displayed a king and a wolf and a girl and a boy and an owl. The puppets were hanging from fishing line. They were turning slowly in the gust of air made by the opening and closing of the shop door. Spelhorst stopped. He took his cap from his head and stared at the puppets. There he was: a man without family, a man without children or grandchildren, a man utterly devoid of whimsy or wonder, staring at a toy store window, bewitched entirely by puppets. But Spelhorst was not staring at all of the puppets. He was staring at one puppet only--the girl with the cloak and the shepherd's crook. The girl had the heart-shaped face and violet eyes of someone Spelhorst had loved long ago. Loved and lost. Loved and lost, loved and lost, the ever-repeating story of the world. "I must have her," Spelhorst said aloud to no one. He put his hat on his head, went into the store, and announced to the clerk that he wished to purchase one of the puppets on display in the window. "You cannot buy just one," said the clerk. "They belong together." "I want the girl puppet only," said Spelhorst. "The puppets must be purchased together or not at all," said the clerk, "for they are in a story." Spelhorst stared at the clerk. Story? What did a story matter to him? The door to the shop opened and closed. The puppets danced in the small wind, and the girl puppet twisted about suddenly so that she was facing the captain, looking at him. Spelhorst closed his eyes and then opened them again. He said, "Very well. All of them." He took the puppets with him back to the room above the tailor shop. He threw the king and the wolf and the owl and the boy into the trunk at the foot of his bed. But the girl puppet Spelhorst propped up on the table so that he might look into her violet eyes. He sat on the bed and stared at her. He said, "I am sorry. I am sorry, Annalise. I am sorry." He put his head in his hands, and then he got up from the bed and sat down at the table and took up a pen and paper. He wrote for a long time. When he was done, he folded the paper and put it in the trunk, and then the old man sat at the table and wept. Outside the room, perched on the windowsill, the pigeons looked in at the sea captain and made noises of despair and disapproval. It grew dark. Spelhorst did not light the lamp. He got into bed and cried himself to sleep as if he were a small child. Excerpted from The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.