Spindlefish and Stars
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
This spellbinding fantasy about a girl from the shadows and a boy from the sea is perfect for fans of The Girl Who Drank the Moon and The Book of Boy.
In which a story is spun.
And unspun.
Clothilde has lived her whole life in the shadows with her (sometimes) thieving and (always) ailing father. But when he fails to meet her one morning, sending her instead a mysterious ticket of half-paffage, Clo finds herself journeying across the sea to reunite with him. The ticket, however, leaves her on a sunless island inhabited only by creaking fishermen, a rumpled old woman, a piggish cat, and a moon-cheeked boy named Cary.
Clo is quickly locked away and made to spend her days in unnerving chores with the island's extraordinary fish, while the old woman sits nearby weaving an endless gray tapestry. Frustrated and aching with the loss of her father, Clo must unravel the mysteries of the island and all that's hidden in the vast tapestry's threads—secrets both exquisite and terrible. And she must decide how much of herself to give up in order to save those she thought she'd lost forever.
Inspired by Greek mythology, this spellbinding fantasy invites readers to seek connections, to forge their own paths, and to explore the power of storytelling in our interwoven histories.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing from Greek mythology, Andrews constructs a leisurely, lyrical debut exploring the nature of destiny and sacrifice. After her father, an art restorer and sometimes thief, is detained, young Clothilde, "wall-jumper, turnip-grower, corner-skulker," takes his last gifts to her his precious leather notebook, a stolen painting, a wheel of foul-smelling cheese and follows his instructions. She arrives first at a mysterious ship on which he has booked her "half passage," and then to an isolated gray island where an old woman, who addresses Clo as "rethguaddnarg," takes her in. Fearful about her father's fate, Clo refuses to settle in on the inscrutable island, with its perpetually gray sky and its inhabitants' obsession with small silvery fish. Soon Clo learns that she's expected to spin these fish into threads, which in turn become part of a magical tapestry that leads her to understand her family's star-crossed history en route to rewriting her own destiny. Her only ally on the island is Cary, a boy her own age who came to the island after his own tragic experience. Though the narrative voice can occasionally seem distant, the timelessness it grants makes this enchanting story feel like an all-new myth built from classic material. Ages 8 12.
