The night rainbow

Title:

The night rainbow

Author:

King, Claire, 1980- author.

Summary:

"It is summer in the south of France, and Pea and her little sister Margot spend their days running free, inventing games in the meadow behind their house. But Pea has worries beyond her five and a half years. Her father has died in an accident, and her mother has just lost a baby. Maman is English, already isolated in this small, foreign village, and in her compounded grief, she has retreated even further. Pea and Margot stay out of her way and try to make things better, but they can't make Maman happy again. When Pea befriends Claude, a man who seems to love the meadow as she does, she wonders if he could be a new papa. But why do the other villagers view Claude with suspicion, and what secrets does his large empty house hold?" -- Amazon.com.

Edition:

First U.S. Edition.

Physical Description:

263 pages ; 22 cm

Subject Term:

Girls -- Fiction.

Sisters -- Fiction.

Grief -- Fiction.

Friendship -- Fiction.

Intergenerational relations -- Fiction.

English -- France -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Bloomsbury USA,

Publication Date:

2013

ISBN:

9781608199440

Publication Information:

New York : Bloomsbury USA, 2013.

Call Number:

KING

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607002764168	Adult Fiction	KING Claire	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

It is summer in the south of France, and Pea and her little sister Margot spend their days running free, inventing games in the meadow behind their house. But Pea has worries beyond her five and a half years. Her father has died in an accident, and her mother has just lost a baby. Maman is English, already isolated in this small, foreign village, and in her compounded grief, she has retreated even further. Pea and Margot stay out of her way and try to make things better, but they can't make Maman happy again.

When Pea befriends Claude, a man who seems to love the meadow as she does, she wonders if he could be a new papa. But why do the other villagers view Claude with suspicion, and what secrets does his large empty house hold?

Beautifully written, haunting, and full of surprises, The Night Rainbow is a novel about innocence and experience, grief and compassion, and the blessings and perils of imagination.

Author Notes

Claire King was born in England, educated at Cambridge, and is the fiction editor for The View from Here magazine. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the BBC's Opening LInes program and the Bristol Short Story Prize. She lives in the south of France with her husband and two children. This is her first novel.

Reviews (1)

Library Journal Review

Five-year-old Pea (shortened from her French name, Pivoine) and her eerily precocious younger sister, Margot, are left to their own devices for most of one oppressively hot summer in the French countryside after their father is killed in a farm accident and their pregnant and deeply depressed mother takes to her bed. When their attempts at helpfulness around the house fail to lift Maman's spirits, the girls escape to the cooler fields nearby, where they invent games and are soon befriended by their neighbor, Claude, and his affectionate dog, Merlin. There is an air of sadness hanging over Claude, as well, but his kind concern and his provisioning of a tree fort filled with games and snacks is gratefully received by the lonely and ever-hungry Pea. VERDICT With a narrative voice reminiscent of young Jack from Emma Donoghue's Room, observing everything but lacking the wisdom to truly understand the grown-up world, this surprising and enchanting first novel is enthusiastically recommended.-Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.