Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Even a life on the untamed plains of Africa can’t prepare Wilhelmina for the wilds of an English boarding school in this “gripping, magical, and heartwarming tale of resilience, friendship, and hope” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Wilhelmina Silver’s world is golden. Living half-wild on an African farm with her horse, her monkey, and her best friend, every day is beautiful. But when her home is sold and Will is sent away to boarding school in England, the world becomes impossibly difficult. Lions and hyenas are nothing compared to packs of vicious schoolgirls. Where can a girl run to in London? And will she have the courage to survive?
From the author of Rooftoppers, which Booklist called “a glorious adventure,” comes an utterly beautiful story that’s “a treasure of a book” (VOYA).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twelve-year-old Wilhelmina "Will" Silver loves her "wildcat life" on a farm "in the hottest corner of Zimbabwe" where she rides horses, trains monkeys, and plays with her friend Simon. Disapproving neighbors consider her "a different species," but her widowed father thinks her "irrefutably the most beautiful creature living." His untimely death shatters Will's world, and results in her being sent to an English boarding school. Will's father's dying words, "Courage, chook, ja?" sustain her in a mystifying new environment for which she has no preparation or advocate, where mocking classmates call her savage. Employing a close third-person narrative, Rundell (Rooftoppers) deftly conveys the terror that impels Will to escape into the streets of London, which she navigates with ingenuity and survival skills honed in Africa. Lyrical prose, Zimbabwean dialect, and evocative dialogue express Will's internal and external worlds; after a street fight, "her heart was rattling around like a cutlery drawer in an earthquake. She spoke to an imaginary Simon. Sha, hey?' " A gripping, magical, and heartwarming tale of resilience, friendship, and hope. Ages 8 12.
