The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This middle grade, magical realism debut about a young girl who sets out to discover the truth behind her mother's disappearance is The Secret Garden meets the Book Scavenger series!
Floralie Laurel, freshly expelled from Mrs. Coffrey's School for Young Girls, works as a flower seller in an English village with her guardian brother, Tom, miles and miles away from their real home in France. Tom and Floralie are drowning in debt, but fortunately, Grandmama arrives to save them. Unfortunately, Grandmama's idea of "saving" means sending Floralie to the Adelaide Laurel Orphanage for Unfortunate Children and shaping her into a proper lady-i.e., ridding her of imagination, daydreams, paintings, and poetry.
Before Grandmama can take her away, Floralie discovers a hidden box of dried flowers and a letter from her mother, who had mysteriously disappeared years ago. The letter promises that the flowers will lead Floralie to Mama if Floralie decodes them with a floriography-a dictionary of flower meanings-written by Claude Monet's gardener.
Accompanied by an orphan boy who speaks only on paper, a blind librarian, and a thieving dormouse, Floralie sets off for Monet's house in France to find Mama. But Mama's fate may not be quite as Floralie expected, and the gardener may be hiding secrets deeper than Monet's water lily ponds....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1927, 11-year-old Floralie and her brother, Tom, live on their own in an English village, supported by their grandmother, who disapproves of Floralie's lack of proper manners and passion for painting. Flashbacks reveal the story of the children's parents: their dynamic, flower-loving mother, who was taken away after a breakdown, as well as their abusive, deceased father. When their grandmother announces that Floralie will now live with her at the orphanage she runs, to begin training to be a "proper wife," Floralie is distraught. Then, with her new friend, Nino, a boy who has escaped the orphanage, she discovers a letter from her mother with a series of flower clues that might lead Floralie to find her. The key to deciphering the meaning of each flower is a dictionary, and the only remaining copy is owned by the gardener at Giverny, Monet's estate and the town where Floralie once lived. Together with Miss Clairoux, a librarian with a secret family connection, they set off for Giverny, uncovering lost relatives along the way and scrambling to escape the henchmen Floralie's grandmother sends after her. Moser brings the era, with all its limitations for girls, to life and readers will sympathize with Floralie's longing for more. This fast-paced and vibrant debut is packed with twists and turns that lead to a satisfying conclusion. Ages 10 14.
