Synopsis
Rose lives in New York, the city of bright lights and excitement—where extraordinary things happen every day. But Rose wasn’t born in New York; she was adopted and arrived there at age two; and though Rose loves her home and her adopted family, sometimes she can’t help but feel different, like she’s meant to be somewhere else.
Then one day in Central Park, Rose sees something truly extraordinary: a crystal staircase rising out of the lake, and two small figures climbing the shimmering steps before vanishing like a mirage. Only it isn’t a mirage. Rose is being watched—by representatives of U Nork, a hidden city far more spectacular than its sister city, New York. In U Nork, dirigibles and zeppelins skirt dazzling skyscrapers that would dwarf the Chrysler Building. Impeccably dressed U Norkers glide along the sidewalks on roller skates. Rose can hardly take it all in.
And then she learns the most astonishing thing about U Nork: its citizens are in danger, and only Rose can help them.
In this masterful new fantasy, best-selling author Adam Gopnik joins with legendary illustrator Bruce McCall to explore powerful themes of identity and the meaning of home.
Reviews
Gr 5-7-Rose has an embarrassing speech impediment. Sometimes she switches around the beginnings of words, for example, calling her home, New York City, "U Nork" instead. During a trip to Central Park with her father and her brother, Oliver, from The King in the Window (Hyperion, 2005), she sees mysterious steps across the lake, but no one believes her. Soon after, classmate Ethan, now Louis, reveals to Rose that the steps are real and lead to U Nork, a flip-side New York City where, believe it or not, the pace is even faster and the people are ruder. Its citizens are in trouble, and it's Rose's face they've been seeing in the sky as the only one who can save them. The rip-roaring plot is laced with original and fantastical characters who fully enjoy 20-second lunches shot into their mouths with small cannons and use giant pigeons as taxis. Gopnik's writing is sharp and smart, and U Nork is an exciting place. Readers will cheer for Rose and her friends and have more than an occasional chuckle along the way. McCall's glossy, full-color, full-page illustrations are beautiful in their simplicity and help create the feel of a modern fairy tale.-Mandy Lawrence, Fowler Middle School, Frisco, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Oliver, the hero of Gopnik’s The King in the Window (2005), plays second banana to his fourth-grader sister, Rose, in this inventive fantasy adventure. A chance occurrence—well, maybe it’s chance—leads New Yorker Rose across a hidden bridge to U Nork, an Oz-style secret city that’s in many ways a mirror of New York (instead of Central Park, they have Sin-Trail Park). In other ways, though, it’s different: buildings are so tall it takes all day to ride elevators, and life is so hectic that cooks use cannons to fire meals across the street into diners’ waiting mouths. It’s a wonderfully imagined blend of 1920s detail—everything is marble and mahogany, and zeppelins are prevalent—with a fantastical drama involving a mystical invader known as the Ice Queen, who is hell-bent on destroying the city . . . and guess who’s supposed to stop her? The wackiness, deliriously inventive at first, eventually generates diminishing returns, but this will capture plenty of fancies, and Gopnik’s love of New York—a place where “it’s secret upon secret upon secret”—is infectious. Grades 4-7. --Daniel Kraus
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
