Angel Thieves($11.64Value)

Description

An ocelot. A slave. An angel thief. Multiple perspectives spanning across time are united through themes of freedom, hope, and faith in a most unusual and epic novel from Newbery Honor–winning author and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt. Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis is an angel thief. After his mother’s family rejected him for being born out of wedlock, he and his dad moved to the apartment above a local antique shop. The only payment the owner Mrs. Walker requests: marble angels, stolen from graveyards, for her to sell for thousands of dollars to collectors. But there’s one angel that would be the last they’d ever need to steal; an angel, carved by a slave, with one hand open and one hand closed. If only Cade could find it… Zorra, a young ocelot, watches the bayou rush past her yearningly. The poacher who captured and caged her has long since lost her, and Zorra is getting hungrier and thirstier by the day. Trapped, she only has the sounds of the bayou for comfort—but it tells her help will come soon. Before Zorra, Achsah, a slave, watched the very same bayou with her two young daughters. After the death of her master, Achsah is free, but she’ll be damned if her daughters aren’t freed with her. All they need to do is find the church with an angel with one hand open and one hand closed… In a masterful feat, National Book Award Honoree Kathi Appelt weaves together stories across time, connected by the bayou, an angel, and the universal desire to be free. Gr 9 Up-Houston today: a teenage boy and his father steal marble angels from cemeteries in the dead of night. A teenage girl, inspired by a young boy and a honey bear jar, takes a chance on love. An ocelot, trapped by a poacher, suffers and starves alone in its cage. Houston, 1846: a freed black woman runs away with her two enslaved young daughters, searching along the bayou for the marble woman who will mark their salvation. The Buffalo Bayou sees it all. The Buffalo Bayou gives what it can, and the Buffalo Bayou remembers. Told in interspersed perspectives across time, these tales are connected by their setting as well as by themes of desperation, hope, and faith. Short chapters and lyrical prose give this novel an atmospheric, poetic sensibility. Elements of historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and magical realism will appeal to a range of readers. VERDICT Spiritual, succinct, and emotionally gripping, this brief but powerful novel is a masterpiece, deserving of a place in every library that serves teens.-Liz Overberg, Zionsville Community High School, INα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Spiritual, succinct, and emotionally gripping. -- School Library Journal A heartfelt love letter to Houston that acknowledges the bad parts of its history while uplifting the good. -- BCCB Shows the best and worst sides of humanity and underscores the powerful force of the bayou, which both holds and erases secrets. -- Publishers Weekly Narrative strands are like tributaries that begin as separate entities but eventually merge into a single thematic connection: that love, whether lost or found, is always powerful. -- Horn Book Richly drawn and important. -- Booklist, starred review Kathi Appelt is the author of the Newbery Honoree, National Book Award finalist, and bestselling The Underneath as well as the National Book Award finalist The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp , Maybe a Fox (with Alison McGhee), Keeper , and many picture books including Counting Crows and Max Attacks . She has two grown children and lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband. Visit her at KathiAppelt.com.