Blue Birds
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
It’s 1587 and twelve-year-old Alis has made the long journey with her parents from England to help settle the New World, the land christened Virginia in honor of the Queen. And Alis couldn’t be happier. While the streets of London were crowded and dirty, this new land, with its trees and birds and sky, calls to Alis. Here she feels free. But the land, the island Roanoke, is also inhabited by the Roanoke tribe and tensions between them and the English are running high, soon turning deadly.
Amid the strife, Alis meets and befriends Kimi, a Roanoke girl about her age. Though the two don’t even speak the same language, these girls form a special bond as close as sisters, willing to risk everything for the other. Finally, Alis must make an impossible choice when her family resolves to leave the island and bloodshed behind.
A beautiful, tender story of friendship and the meaning of family, Caroline Starr Rose delivers another historical gem.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this historical novel about the lost colony of Roanoke, set in 1587 and written in free verse, Rose weaves two distinct, culturally diverse voices while tracing the developing friendship between Alis, a 12-year-old English settler, and a native girl named Kimi. The narrative immediately establishes a sense of urgency and danger when Alis and her fellow colonists arrive in Roanoke (not their intended destination), where they discover the previous settlers have disappeared; further tension arises as Kimi reflects on the brutality her Roanoke tribe has already suffered at the hands of the British. Rose skillfully paints the abject loneliness that primes both girls for friendship: Alis is the only girl in the settlement, and Kimi's father was beheaded by colonists, who also brought the disease that killed her sister. Though the poems generally alternate between the girls' voices, Rose occasionally combines both perspectives into a single poem to powerful effect. An afterword offers more information about the mystery of Roanoke. Rich with detail, it's a memorable account of a friendship that transcends culture and prejudice. Ages 10 up.
