Rosie No-name and the Forest of Forgetting - Softcover

Owen, Gareth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019271550X ISBN 13: 9780192715500

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

An intriguing fantasy novel, based in part on the Hansel and Gretel theme.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6?This book has all the elements of any time-travel fantasy: Rosie is transported (indirectly) by a fall through a staircase into an unfamiliar forest, where she forgets her name, meets and befriends a boy in old-fashioned clothing, and is captured and imprisoned by a mysterious witchlike woman. The girl eventually escapes and saves herself and her new friend, only to wake up and find that she was in a coma the whole time. Unfortunately, the elements never come together into a cohesive whole and too many unexplained threads make the book more confusing than compelling: Who was the girl in the white dress, and why does she drop out of the story? Why does the forest make Rosie forget? Who is the witch and what is her interest in Rosie? And why doesn't the grown-up Allstair remember her? Episodes in the book happen too quickly and are not given the time or attention needed to make this a convincing fantasy. Pass on this title?buy extra copies of old favorites like C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Macmillan, 1950), Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden (HarperCollins, 1969), or Elizabeth M. Pope's The Perilous Gard (Puffin, 1992) instead.?Carrie Schadle, New York Public Library
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

This time-travel tale begins with a prologue set in 1916 when a witch pulls a young girl under the waters of a dark pool. When present-day Rosie falls from a crumbling staircase and finds herself face to face with a smiling girl in a long white dress, readers understand that Rosie has been transported back to 1916. The girl runs off with Rosie's diary, teasing her to follow, and follow her she must for Rosie remembers nothing of herself but her name. Her pursuit of the girl takes her into a dark forest fraught with dangers, and a complicated plot ensues involving the witch, an evil raven, and a black carriage of death. The well-realized setting and Rosie's fantastic predicament never come together convincingly; readers won't believe that a few hours after the raven dive-bombs Rosie's horse, she fails to recognize the bird on the witch's shoulder or to comprehend the danger of her situation. Promising a lot, this still fails to satisfy. (Fiction. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 019271550X
• ISBN 13: 9780192715500
• Binding: Paperback