The Wide Starlight

Zusatztext ? "With her vividly rendered settings, emotionally complex characters, and sweet and sinister magical realism, Lesperance may be a promising successor to Alice Hoffman...[ The Wide Starlight is] sharp and snow-dusted yet strangely cozy; a comforting winter's read." Kirkus , starred review ? "A lovely exploration of grief and the way stories shape our livesand how reshaping stories can have consequences. The pages fly by as Lesperance's compelling voice and masterful switching between present-day narrative and fairy-tale past smoothly build a portrait of intergenerational love, loss, and magic rooted in a glittering Arctic landscape." BCCB, starred review "This mesmerizing and sometimes heartbreaking fantasy reveals the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters...A haunting contemporary fantasy." School Library Journal "Lesperance weaves the myth and magic of Norwegian folklore into a realistic setting in this wintry tale of a teen searching for her long-lost mother...an emotionally complex tale of the love between mothers and daughters that balances between ominous and cozy." Booklist "[A] promising debut." Publishers Weekly Poetic and richly imagined, The Wide Starlight is a spell-binding journey through a world of Nordic fairytalethe heart-wrenching story of a teenage girl and her quest to reclaim and understand the mother who abandoned her. Edith Patou, award-winning author of East and West "Nicole Lesperance blends crystalline prose, an atmospheric setting and memorable characters to create a story that dances and shines as brightly as the northern lights in her debut YA novel, The Wide Starlight ." BookPage A Junior Library Guild Selection Informationen zum Autor Nicole Lesperance grew up on Cape Cod and graduated from Wesleyan University. She spent a few years in London and now lives near Boston with her husband, two kids, and two rambunctious black cats. She writes YA and middle grade books. Follow her on Twitter @niclesperance or visit her online at NicoleLesperance.com. Klappentext The Hazel Wood meets The Astonishing Color of After in this dreamy, atmospheric novel that follows sixteen-year-old Eli as she tries to remember what truly happened the night her mother disappeared off a frozen fjord in Norway under the Northern Lights. According to Arctic lore, if you whistle at the Northern Lights, they'll swoop down and carry you off forever. Sixteen-year-old Eline Davis knows it's true because it happened to her mother. Eli was there that night on the remote glacier in Svalbard, when her mother whistled, then vanished. Years later, Eli is living with her dad on Cape Cod. When Eli discovers the Northern Lights will be visible for one night on the Cape, she hatches a plan to use the lights to contact her missing mother. And it works. Her mother arrives with a hazy story of where she's been all this time. Eli knows no one will believe them, so she keeps it all a secret. But when magical, dangerous things start happening--narwhals appearing in Cape Cod Bay, meteorites landing in the yard, three shadowy fairytale princesses whispering ominous messages--the secrets start to become more like lies. It's all too much, too fast, and Eli pushes her mother away, not expecting her to disappear as abruptly as she appeared. Her mother's gone again, and Eli's devastated. Until she finds the note written in mother's elegant scrawl: Find me where I left you . And so, off to Svalbard Eli goes. Leseprobe I find the letter one slushy February afternoon, stuck in the holly bush beside my front door. Setting my bag of library books on the steps, I crouch and fish the envelope out of the jagged branches. Judging from the dark splotches and water lines on the pap...

Auteur
Nicole Lesperance grew up on Cape Cod and graduated from Wesleyan University. She spent a few years in London and now lives near Boston with her husband, two kids, and two rambunctious black cats. She writes YA and middle grade books. Follow her on Twitter @niclesperance or visit her online at NicoleLesperance.com.

Texte du rabat

The Hazel Wood meets The Astonishing Color of After in this dreamy, atmospheric novel that follows sixteen-year-old Eli as she tries to remember what truly happened the night her mother disappeared off a frozen fjord in Norway under the Northern Lights.

According to Arctic lore, if you whistle at the Northern Lights, they'll swoop down and carry you off forever. Sixteen-year-old Eline Davis knows it's true because it happened to her mother. Eli was there that night on the remote glacier in Svalbard, when her mother whistled, then vanished.

Years later, Eli is living with her dad on Cape Cod. When Eli discovers the Northern Lights will be visible for one night on the Cape, she hatches a plan to use the lights to contact her missing mother. And it works. Her mother arrives with a hazy story of where she's been all this time. Eli knows no one will believe them, so she keeps it all a secret. But when magical, dangerous things start happening--narwhals appearing in Cape Cod Bay, meteorites landing in the yard, three shadowy fairytale princesses whispering ominous messages--the secrets start to become more like lies.

It's all too much, too fast, and Eli pushes her mother away, not expecting her to disappear as abruptly as she appeared. Her mother's gone again, and Eli's devastated. Until she finds the note written in mother's elegant scrawl: Find me where I left you. And so, off to Svalbard Eli goes.

Échantillon de lecture
I find the letter one slushy February afternoon, stuck in the holly bush beside my front door. Setting my bag of library books on the steps, I crouch and fish the envelope out of the jagged branches. Judging from the dark splotches and water lines on the paper, it’s been there a long time. Someone has printed my name in pencil, crooked and hasty, with none of the i’s dotted and the faintest hints of crosses on the t’s. *

• Eline Davis Massachusetts, USA

There’s an official post office sticker across the bottom. Return to sender, it says. Not deliverable as addressed. But somehow it made it here anyway. The postmark is smudged; I can only just make out the word Norge. Norway. Oblivious to the icy rain pattering into my hair, I tear the envelope open. Somehow, the paper inside isn’t wet.

Moren din er nær. Jeg hører henne, men hun kan ikke høre meg. Du må prøve. Kall på henne.     —­M

I never learned to read Norwegian, and it’s been years since I spoke the language. Whenever I try, the words feel like rocks in my mouth. Squinting at the paper, I whisper them out loud.

Moren. Mother.

My scalp begins to prickle. It’s been ten years since I last saw my mother, ten years I’ve been waiting for her to come back, even though my dad and I live on another continent now and she’d have no idea how to find us. I mutter the rest of the words, hating how awkward and foreign I sound. It says something about hearing but not hearing, something about calling.

I glance across the street: Iris’s truck isn’t in her driveway. On Saturdays she meets up with other incredibly intelligent people from all over Cape Cod and they solve math problems for fun. She should be home any minute now.

Moren din. Your mother.

A bead of ice slips inside my collar, sending a wash of goose bumps across my skin. With trembling fingers, I unlock the door and step inside, where I’m enveloped by the smoky scent of chipotle layered over rich, salty beef. My dad left the house while I was out, but he must have put dinner in the Crock-­Pot first. Pulling out my phone, I sit on our ancient couch and type the note’s words into an online translator.

*Your mother is close. I hear her, but she cannot hear me. You mu…