A Corner of White (The Colors of Madeleine, Book 1): Book 1 of The Colors of Madeleine - Hardcover

Moriarty, Jaclyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0545397367 ISBN 13: 9780545397360

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013

Synopsis

The first in a rousing, funny, genre-busting trilogy from bestseller Jaclyn Moriarty!

This is a tale of missing persons. Madeleine and her mother have run away from their former life, under mysterious circumstances, and settled in a rainy corner of Cambridge (in our world).Elliot, on the other hand, is in search of his father, who disappeared on the night his uncle was found dead. The talk in the town of Bonfire (in the Kingdom of Cello) is that Elliot's dad may have killed his brother and run away with the Physics teacher. But Elliot refuses to believe it. And he is determined to find both his dad and the truth.As Madeleine and Elliot move closer to unraveling their mysteries, they begin to exchange messages across worlds -- through an accidental gap that hasn't appeared in centuries. But even greater mysteries are unfolding on both sides of the gap: dangerous weather phenomena called "color storms;" a strange fascination with Isaac Newton; the myth of the "Butterfly Child," whose appearance could end the droughts of Cello; and some unexpected kisses...

About this title

About the Author

Jaclyn Moriarty is the award-winning author of A Corner of White, The Cracks in the Kingdom, A Tangle of Gold, The Year of Secret Assignments, The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie, The Ghosts of Ashbury High, and The Spell Book of Listen Taylor. A former media and entertainment lawyer, Jaclyn grew up in Sydney, Australia, lived in the United States, Canada, and UK, and now lives in Sydney again. She is very fond of chocolate, blueberries, and sleep.

Reviews

Gr 6-9-In this lovely fantasy, two stories run parallel. Fourteen-year-old Madeleine lives in Cambridge, England, where she is adjusting to life without her dad. Elliot lives in the Kingdom of Cello, where his search for his dad is postponed by the deplorable state of crops at home. If it were not for the tiny portal in a parking meter, Madeleine and Elliot would not have started writing letters back and forth. The story is told through the teens' communications and an omniscient narrator. This mix allows readers to know Madeleine and Elliot and their problems intimately, but it also gives them an aerial view of events, helps them meet the richly drawn secondary characters, and allows them to see the ingenious way in which the protagonists' lives ultimately combine. Attacks by "Colors," "living organisms: a kind of rogue subclass of the colors that we see when we look at a red apple or blue sky" keep the townspeople on edge, and Elliot wonders if his dad were killed during one of them. Mysteries abound. Is Madeleine's mom's strange behavior due to her inability to cope with poverty, or is something else going on? Why doesn't Madeleine's dad answer her letter, and is she somehow to blame for his absence? Ultimately, this is a story of two teenagers helping each other figure out their places in their respective worlds.-Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Libraries, NCα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Australian writer Moriarty’s marvelously original fantasy is quirky and clever, exploring links between present-day Cambridge, England, and the Kingdom of Cello, where colors attack, seasons roam unpredictably, and the Butterfly Child can save a community. Fourteen-year-old homeschooled Madeleine lives with her mother in an attic flat in Cambridge, adjusting to near poverty after they ran from a fabulously wealthy jet-setting life with Madeleine’s emotionally distant father. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Elliot is trying to find his father, whose suspicious disappearance has sparked rumors and more in their farming community. Elliot and Madeleine meet when Elliot puts a letter into a crack in a concrete sculpture—Madeleine sees the corner of white peeking out from the foot of a parking meter. Their correspondence provides rich character development in a plot with a dizzying number of developments. Moriarty captures the proud iconoclasm of many homeschoolers and does not shy away from tenderness and poignancy as both Madeleine and Elliot confront difficult family truths. Expect readers to flock to Moriarty’s name and stay for the whole (projected) Colors of Madeleine trilogy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Moriarty (The Year of Secret Assignments, 2004) is hugely popular and demand for her latest should be high. Grades 7-11, --Debbie Carton

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From THE COLORS OF MADELEINE #1: A CORNER OF WHITEShe leaned her bike against a wall and saw it again -- that fine line of white along the seam of the parking meter. She tried to pull it out with her fingertips but it was too deeply embedded. By holding two fingernails, one above and one below, she managed to grasp the edge of the paper and slowly draw it out. It was a thin piece of paper, folded in half. She unfolded it and read: Help me! I am being held against my will! She laughed aloud, looking at the base of the parking meter: the split concrete. "You're trying to escape," she said, then glanced around to check that nobody had seen her talking to a parking meter. The street was empty.It was growing dark, everything turning shades of grey. The paper in the palm of her hand made her shudder suddenly.I am being held against my will!What if it was real? A message from a stranger who was trapped?Strange place to put it, though, she thought, and smiled again. I am being held against my will. On the darkening path, she took paper from her backpack, and she wrote a reply to the note.She folded it and slid it into the parking meter until it too was nothing but a fine white line. Then she rode away.

Edition details

• Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0545397367
• ISBN 13: 9780545397360
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 384