We have a running joke in our family because when Brynnen was younger, the mere mention that a book was awarded a Nutmeg or a Nutmeg nomination (the CT book awards) was a guarantee that she would not read it. I suspect it had something to do with books not in her desired subjects wheelhouse (improving stories of cultural exchange triumphing over bigotry, of families wrenched apart and how we learn from those things) combined with the pressure of teachers/librarians/parents to read these books. So now we regularly browse the Nutmeg shelf in the library (and often, though not always, Brynnen now reads it, despite our mocking).
That's how I found Lauren Oliver's book, Liesl and Po.
I enjoyed this immensely. The book is set in a universe where magic/alchemy exists but isn't terribly common and where there are wicked stepmothers in the best Grimm fashion but it is also a world close to our own with average little girls and boys and men doing jobs that pay the rent but aren't where their hearts lie and train travel.
Liesl and Po is a ghost story. It's a story about loss and longing (Liesl's father has passed away). It's a story about desire for closure (how do we say goodbye to those we love and lose). It's about the desire for contact (how do we make new friends and new families).
It was sweet and sad and ultimately resolved in the best of real-life fairy-tale ways (with magic as a catalyst but not as an omnipotent force; with the power of wanting to go forward trumping the desire to stop all the clocks).
(Aimed at tweens, enjoyed by adults)
Had you not told me you loved the thing, I might not have gone on from the first chapter or two, which I didn't like much at all. It picked up a lot, though, particularly when they all left town chasing after each other.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
-E.