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This one:
Living in a foreign country, even if you speak the language, gives you a much deeper appreciation for the exactness of words than you would ever think about in a monolingual setting. I've been in Germany for a year and a half, and frequently suffer varying waves of word starvation. So by the time I reached all of page 5, with lovely prose like the following excerpt, it was all I could do not to stuff the book in my mouth and devour it whole:
"I traced my finger over the split floorboards, the rivets driven into patches where the wood had grown too thin. I knew the path of every uneven board in these floors, the very spiderweb of cracks in the walls; the leather belts and iron gears and moss-covered wheel said home in every sigh and rustle."
Charlotte Miller and her sister Rosie are all that's left to run the cloth mill once their father dies. The mill has been in family possession forever, but there's never been a simple father to son inheritance. There's a curse on the Miller family, a curse that resists repairs to the mill, that prevents the millers from ever truly "making it"--and that prevents any Miller sons from ever living long enough to inherit. Charlotte doesn't believe in curses. She doesn't accept superstition: she's certain that a straight-set head and hard work is all she needs to overcome whatever problems they may have. But when the problems reveal themselves deeper than she'd ever expected, she must face the fact that an old curse is at work. A curse that, despite its gold glitter, is set to ensnare her as well--unless she can find the courage and wits to defeat it.
Elizabeth Bunce weaves the bones of the traditional tale of Rumplestilskin into a setting you could believe was real somewhere, some time. Her knowledge of woolen mills and cloth is astounding, and every noun and verb in the book proves that she is also a master of the wonderful English language. Characters unfold in complexity, and we find ourselves pitying even the most despicable figures at one point or another. Kudos to Elizabeth for her courageous, smart heroine!
A Curse Dark as Gold
By Elizabeth C. Bunce
Arthur A. Levine, 2008
YA
Living in a foreign country, even if you speak the language, gives you a much deeper appreciation for the exactness of words than you would ever think about in a monolingual setting. I've been in Germany for a year and a half, and frequently suffer varying waves of word starvation. So by the time I reached all of page 5, with lovely prose like the following excerpt, it was all I could do not to stuff the book in my mouth and devour it whole:
"I traced my finger over the split floorboards, the rivets driven into patches where the wood had grown too thin. I knew the path of every uneven board in these floors, the very spiderweb of cracks in the walls; the leather belts and iron gears and moss-covered wheel said home in every sigh and rustle."
Charlotte Miller and her sister Rosie are all that's left to run the cloth mill once their father dies. The mill has been in family possession forever, but there's never been a simple father to son inheritance. There's a curse on the Miller family, a curse that resists repairs to the mill, that prevents the millers from ever truly "making it"--and that prevents any Miller sons from ever living long enough to inherit. Charlotte doesn't believe in curses. She doesn't accept superstition: she's certain that a straight-set head and hard work is all she needs to overcome whatever problems they may have. But when the problems reveal themselves deeper than she'd ever expected, she must face the fact that an old curse is at work. A curse that, despite its gold glitter, is set to ensnare her as well--unless she can find the courage and wits to defeat it.
Elizabeth Bunce weaves the bones of the traditional tale of Rumplestilskin into a setting you could believe was real somewhere, some time. Her knowledge of woolen mills and cloth is astounding, and every noun and verb in the book proves that she is also a master of the wonderful English language. Characters unfold in complexity, and we find ourselves pitying even the most despicable figures at one point or another. Kudos to Elizabeth for her courageous, smart heroine!
