Down Came a Blackbird - Hardcover

Wilde, Nicholas

4

13 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805020012 ISBN 13: 9780805020014

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1992

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Sent to his great-uncle's estate to end his troubles with the law, adolescent James becomes drawn by the power of the Georgian house and soon discovers that another boy just like him once lived there.

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 7-10-- James, 13, is a social case with a criminal record for shoplifting. He is sent to stay with his crippled great-uncle in the English countryside while his alcoholic mother is in the hospital. His anger and confused feelings cause him to withdraw into himself and reject all tokens of friendship offered by the kindly housekeeper. He is further troubled by sleepwalking and nightmares. Then two things happen: he discovers a door leading nowhere and other evidence that the house once had another wing; and he begins to have strangely vivid dreams in which he is another boy who once lived on the estate. As the skillfully developed plot unfolds in alternating sections, past and present touch, mingle, and overlap in powerful and moving ways. In a terrific climax, James finds out what happened to the missing section of the house and how his great-uncle and the housekeeper relate to what his dreams have shown of the past. The final revelation, as well as the identity of the housekeeper, is the breakthrough that helps the James of the present begin to rediscover his feelings. In a gentle ending that is realistic and only partially upbeat, readers see the boy deciding to reach out to his great-uncle to try to save him and himself from remaining emotionally dead. Suspenseful, atmospheric, and very well told. --Lyle Blake Smythers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Junior High Up
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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