The Constellation of Sylvie - Hardcover

Townley, Roderick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689857136 ISBN 13: 9780689857133

Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2006

Synopsis

In an attempt to save the astronauts from certain death after they missed their reentry to Earth while on a return mission from Jupiter, Princess Sylvie and her friends must collect a solution from one of Jupiter's moons, melt it, and give the crew the oxygen so they can stay alive long enough to find their way back home.

About this title

About the Author

Roderick Townley's first book about Sylvie, The Great Good Thing, was a Top-Ten Book Sense Pick, praised by Kirkus Reviews as "utterly winning...a book beloved from the first page." Its sequel, Into the Labyrinth, was hailed by the New York Times as "a hopping fine read." The present volume completes the Sylvie cycle. Mr. Townley has also published the novel Sky, described by VOYA as "one hell of a book," as well as volumes of poetry, nonfiction, and literary criticism. He has two children, Jesse and Grace, and is married to author Wyatt Townley.

Reviews

Grade 4-9–The story land inhabitants inside The Great Good Thing (2001) and Into the Labyrinth (2002, both S & S) now find themselves wrongly loaded onto a ship and launched into outer space. Princess Sylvie and her fictional costars find life inside a book turned upside down. Microgravity and the laws that bring normalcy to Earth are only the beginning of adjustments that the fleshly crew and book characters must overcome. Astronaut Kara is the only being to read the medieval drama when the mission is dealt a fatal blow. Trouble with the flight parallels trouble inside story land as Princess Sylvie realizes that the court jester Pingree has become her nemesis, and that the spaceship has missed its entrance to Earth's atmosphere. Even in the midst of her own grim problems, Princess Sylvie realizes that the fate of the astronauts depends on the intervention of the storybook crew. More than just cardboard characters, Princess Sylvie and the cast grow beyond their own narrow roles of text. The well-paced plot is in keeping with the first two books and beautifully marries two realities into a clever telling of tales. NASA space facts bring authenticity to two worlds existing on one plane. The quick pacing and easy reading add to an already witty blend.–Robyn Gioia, Bolles School, Ponte Vedra, FL
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Gr. 5-8. The premise of Townley's novel and its predecessors is that people don't read a story, they "hear" it; characters act it out from inside the storybook world. After rescuing their story from extinction in The Great Good Thing (2001), then getting it onto the Internet in Into the Labyrinth (2002), Princess Sylvie and her fellow characters discover that they are bored. Then their book is stowed on a spaceship bound for Jupiter, where the characters must perform their story as the crew reads it. When the ship misses re-entry to Earth, the characters must help the crew survive until the next re-entry window, four years in the future. The metafictional premise is deftly realized, from the characters' attempts to communicate with the crew to the views the characters get of the "real" world whenever their book is opened. Although the events outside the storybook world are a little hard to swallow, Sylvie's plucky, resourceful nature seems right for the story. Fans of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart (2003) and Inkspell (2004) will like this, too. Krista Hutley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689857136
• ISBN 13: 9780689857133
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208