The Kings Are Already Here - Hardcover

Freymann-Weyr, Garret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618263632 ISBN 13: 9780618263639

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2003

Synopsis

Phebe Knight is training to become a ballerina. At fifteen, she has never once questioned that this is the life she wants. But now, one year away from joining the Company, her mind begins to wander. She decides to spend the summer with her father, who lives in Switzerland, in the hope that a change of scene will bring her focus back to the barre.
Nikolai Kotalev is a sixteen-year-old chess champion who has been befriended by Phebe’s father. Nikolai is looking for the chess teacher he needs: the legendary Stas Vlajnik. Nikolai’s attention never wanders. He plays beautiful chess and wants to learn from Stas how to become a grandmaster capable of both grace and speed.
Phebe, who knows what it means to follow one’s obsessions, organizes a search to help Nikolai find the elusive Stas. They travel across Europe with Phebe’s father and his girlfriend, hunting for Stas in all the places where chess’s elegant patterns live. Phebe and Nikolai study each other’s obsessions to find the lives they want.
The Kings Are Already Here explores the limits of what one is willing to pay for perfection and beauty.

About this title

About the Author

Garret Freymann-Weyr grew up in New York City and often sets her books there. She went to college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and received an MFA in film from New York University. She has written four books for young adults, including My Heartbeat, which won a Printz Honor for excellence in literature for young adults. Her books have been published in numerous countries including the Netherlands, Japan, and China. She currently lives outside Washington, D. C., with her husband. She has said that the best way to get ideas is to read a lot. “That gets you thinking in terms of story, character, and image.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. In My Heartbeat, this year's Books for Youth Top of the List winner, Freymann-Weyr focused on the intensity of relationships. Intense emotions are at work here, too, but they are not directed at people. Phebe has devoted her life to ballet, and Nikolai to chess. They meet when Phebe, curious to see if she can let anything else into her life, goes to Geneva to spend the summer with her father, Clarence, who heads an international refugee agency. Clarence has taken in 16-year-old Nikolai, deserted by his bullying father after Nikolai chose another coach--who then left Nikolai in the lurch. The story, long and convoluted as it follows Phebe, Nikolai, and Clarence and his lady friend in search of the elusive coach, is only a framework for the psychological battle that rages in Phebe and Nikolai as they engage their obsessions. Freymann-Weyr's writing can be as elegant as a beautifully played chess game or a perfect pas de deux, and Phebe and Nikolai's alternating monologues are sophisticated riffs showing flashes of both the characters' brilliance and the author's capabilities. Yet, the characters essentially live inside their own heads, with emotions and needs that won't always resonate with young teens. Readers who are willing to stick with the story, however, will find something of substance and, like Phebe and Nikolai, perhaps discover options for their own lives unfolding before them. Ilene Cooper
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About this edition

• Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0618263632
• ISBN 13: 9780618263639
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160