Banks, Angelica. Finding Serendipity.

Banks, Angelica.  Finding Serendipity.  Macmillan/Henry Holt  2015  280p  $16.99  ISBN 978-1-62779-154-0  elem/ms  Fantasy  E-BN       

Tuesday McGillicuddy has kept a secret for years.  Her  mother is the famous author who writes under the name of Serendipity Smith.  When her mother seems to have disappeared, Tuesday wants to find her.  She finds the delicate silver thread words “The End” and realizes  how the writing works.  She begins typing her story and the thread of her words transports her into her story.  Thinking her mother must be lost in the Vivienne Small world that she writes about, Tuesday enters this world.  She joins Vivienne on adventures but learns that her story must find its own way to the end.
   

This is a beautiful, fantastical way to explain how an author enters the world of his or her characters.  In places the language is almost poetic.  The reader comes to care deeply about Tuesday and her attempt to find her way out and find her mother at the same time.

Precocious fourth graders and most fifth graders will be able to follow this story.  More mature readers who can lose themselves in a story will also be enchanted.   The writing process is defined as the author going into the story and living it. 

Summary: In this fantasy adventure, the reader may come to understand a little bit of the way an author’s mind works.  Grade 5-8.       

Fantasy-Fiction, Literature-Fiction                         --Joan Theal

Eagland, Jane. The World Within.

Eagland, Jane.  The World Within.  Scholastic/Arthur Levine  2015  329p  $18.99  ISBN 978-0-545-49295-9  ms  Historical fiction  VG

Not much is known about Emily Bronte, the author of Wuthering Heights. Eagland takes the meager historical record and combines it with clues from the Brontes’ written works to create a window into the life of the Bronte siblings when they were teens.

Emily, Charlotte, Anne and Bram were raised in isolation at the edge of the moors near the village of Haworth.  Theirs was an unconventional upbringing, with the girls receiving an education very similar to their brother’s.  Emily is ill-prepared to cope with boarding school.  She is socially awkward and resents the rules that dictate her behavior in every aspect of her life, after a childhood of relative freedom.

When Emily returns home, she struggles with changing family dynamics.  Charlotte is teaching at school and Anne wants her chance to attend.  Bram indulges in reckless behavior, drinking and gambling while squandering precious opportunities for advancement.  Father is gravely ill.  Emily’s safe haven is eroding and she cannot escape into her imaginary world to write.  Slowly, she emerges from her sheltered world to make a new friend (Mary), discover that a neighbor’s son finds her as attractive as she finds his (irresistible) library, and raise a puppy into a faithful canine companion.

Eagland does not stray far from what is known about the Brontes, so the action is a little flat and the characters are not completely rounded out.  However, for fans of Wuthering Heights, this volume will provide some background about the book’s author.    

Summary: A fictionalized account of Emily Bronte’s childhood.          

Literature-Fiction, Bronte, Emily-Fiction                   --Hilary Welliver