The Sky Over Rebecca
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
When mysterious footprints appear in the Stockholm snow, ten-year-old Kara must discover where they've come from - and who they belong to. The trail of footprints leads Kara to Rebecca, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, and her younger brother Samuel. Kara realises they are refugees - from another time, World War Two - and are trying to find their way home.
The grief and loneliness that Rebecca and Samuel have endured is something Kara can relate to - feeling like you're always on the outside looking in - and she finds herself compelled to help them escape. Through her eyes, we rediscover the magic that lies in the world around us, if only we have the courage to look for it.
Kara is a heroine for modern times: fragile but fierce, in this utterly compelling story from a stellar new voice in children's literature, Matthew Fox
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Fox's historical fantasy debut, set in contemporary Stockholm, a lonely girl must help strangers from the past find their way back to their time. Eleven-year-old Kara Lukas, an only child being raised by a single mother absorbed in her work, relies on her elderly star-gazing grandfather for companionship. She soon notices odd details in her community and its surrounding woods, such as a snow angel with no footprints nearby and a coin from 1942 marked with a swastika. The clues lead her to Rebecca, a Jewish teen hiding with her younger brother Samuel on an island in the middle of frozen Lake Mälaren that Kara comes to realize is a "gateway to another time, another place." She also learns that the siblings are from 1944 and they're hiding from Nazis. The youths' friendship and Kara's family relationships are sensitively depicted, and the pervasive ambiance of the dark Swedish winter is captivating. Through Kara's understated voice and the novel's thrilling, quietly building suspense, Fox delivers a thoughtful meditation on the expansiveness of time, melded with Holocaust history and a solitary girl's personal growth, making for an enthralling read. Major characters cue as white. Ages 8–12.
