The Staircase - Hardcover

Rinaldi, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152024301 ISBN 13: 9780152024307

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000

Synopsis

Having been left at a girls school run by nuns by her father, Lizzy Enders feels very out of place, personally and religiously, yet when she is befriended by the handyman who makes her a staircase to the choir loft, Lizzy begins to open up a bit and deal with her new surroundings.

About this title

About the Author

Ann Rinaldi is an award-winning author best known for bringing history vividly to life.She has received numerous starred reviews and awards, as well as widespread recognition for her historical novels. Ms. Rinaldi lives in central New Jersey.

Reviews

Rinaldi (The Coffin Quilt) delivers another winning historical novel, this time turning to New Mexico in the 1870s. After her mother dies on the Santa Fe Trail, 13-year-old Lizzy Enders is deposited by her father in a Santa Fe convent schoolAwithout even saying good-bye. Pragmatic Lizzy, who is Methodist, chafes at the hypocrisy and injustice she observes: "To have pride was a sin. Humility was everything, though all the girls preened and boasted and glowed when they got praise from the nuns." She is also baffled at the convent's conundrum: the nuns are praying to Saint Joseph for help finishing their newly constructed chapel, which lacks a staircase to the choir loft; Lizzy simply finds a carpenter, the disheveled vagrant Jose. "Saint Joseph will think we have no faith in him!" one of the girls angrily tells Lizzy. The dynamics among the girls seem reductive, especially the tense exchanges between Lizzy and the villainously manipulative Elinora, whose evil deeds include poking out Lizzy's kitten's eyes with an embroidery needle. Fortunately, the highly charged description of the Wild West town (and a subplot involving Jesse James) and Lizzy's relationships with the adult characters prove colorful and lively. An endnote explaining the enduring mystery of the chapel staircase will leave readers pleasantly intrigued. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 5-7. Legend has it that the beautiful spiral staircase in Santa Fe's Chapel of Loretto was built with miraculous speed by a mysterious carpenter. Around this apparent miracle, Rinaldi spins a melodramatic tale narrated by a resilient, nineteenth-century teenager. After Lizzy's mother dies on the trail to Santa Fe, her father leaves her in a girls' school run by the Sisters of Loretto, where she's forced to room with conniving Elinora. Lizzy, raised Methodist, becomes a despised outsider to the students, but she is befriended by several adults--including a ragged carpenter who appears one day and is hired to build a staircase to the new chapel's choir loft. Rinaldi gives Lizzy plenty of opportunity to comment on the area's distinctive brand of Catholicism as the girl receives wise counsel from adults and faces life-threatening dangers. There are miracles in plenty, too, though not the supernatural sort, with some edging into contrivance: Elinora, for instance, is so villainized (in one typical act, she pokes the eyes of Lizzy's new kitten with a knitting needle) that it's hard to buy the roommates' ultimate reconciliation. Lizzie even forgives her father; at the conclusion, she sets out with her not-blinded-after-all kitten and an orphaned baby to rejoin him. Once again, Rinaldi plays expertly to her audience. Bibliography; afterword. John Peters
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152024301
• ISBN 13: 9780152024307
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240