The Heavenly Village - Hardcover

Rylant, Cynthia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439040965 ISBN 13: 9780439040969

Publisher: Blue Sky Pr, 1999

Synopsis

An incredible tale details The Heavenly Village, a place where people who are not ready to give up their earthly understanding of time, routines, and loved ones can keep half their heart in heaven and the other half on earth until they are ready to move on, and the seven people who pass through it on their way to afterlife. 18,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

As a child in West Virginia, Newbery Medalist Cynthia Rylant devoured comic books and paperback romances. She never dreamed of being a writer until she took one college English class. Then she became "hooked on great writing...I didn't know about this part of me until I went to college—didn't know that I loved beautiful stories." One night, inspired by the Southern writer, James Agee, she wrote her first picture book, When I Was Young in the Mountains, which was an instant success. Since then, she's written more than 60 children's books and received numerous awards, including the Newbery and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. With simplicity and grace, Rylant's books explore such subjects as aging, the trials of spirituality, the loss of a loved one, and the spirit and integrity of family life with all its joys and hardships. Rylant has said, "Books alter our hearts." Her books are a testament to this promise. Rylant lives in the Pacific Northwest. For more information about Cynthia Rylant, visit: scholastic.com/tradebooks

From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up-Heavenly Village is peopled with souls not quite ready for heaven. Rylant relates the stories of seven of the Village residents in a series of carefully crafted vignettes that seem to convey the essence of a highly personal spiritual understanding. Her selection of characters seems at least in part dictated by the theology she is constructing. Readers meet a doctor who now spends his time doing nothing but talking with his "patients" (who just know they must have died and gone to heaven if a doctor is actually listening to them). The Village Timekeeper (a bank teller on Earth) never had time for beauty. The Village baker, Violet Rose, "had a very sad childhood. This is always something God has little power over. (And because of this, He sometimes has a lot of explaining to do to the new arrival in heaven)." She was killed by a hit-and-run driver. There is a boy named Harold and his dog, Fortune. Fortune just loves to rescue people and was sent to the Village because he kept trying to rescue angels in heaven who didn't need rescuing. Harold went along because the two are inseparable. Oh, and the man who was driving the car that killed Violet Rose is in the Village also. Adult in both tone and sensibility, the book comes up short as a work of fiction for children. They might enjoy the description of Fortune's well-meant attempts to rescue angels, but there is little else to draw them in. Heartfelt and well-intentioned, this offering is ultimately unsatisfying and muddled.
Elaine Fort Weischedel, Turner Free Library, Randolph, MA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blue Sky Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0439040965
• ISBN 13: 9780439040969
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 95