**Congratulations to Judie Lawson, who won the Christmas Eve drawing for Book Two!
As a reader, I admire authors. I’m typically generous with my praise. When I read Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, I realized the problem with high praise all around is it doesn’t leave proper space to applaud the really brilliant books.
Rooftoppers is one of those really brilliant books. In fact, Rundell is simply a brilliant author. She has a unique way with language—with imagining her characters and bringing them to impossible life. Her characters and worlds are luminous, yet somehow also have substance and grit. I brought another of her books to you in The Wolf Wilder (click to read about it if you missed my recommendation).
Here’s the summary for Rooftoppers:
“When authorities threaten to take Sophie, twelve, from Charles, who has been her guardian since she was one and both survived a shipwreck, the pair goes to Paris to try to find Sophie’s mother, where they are aided by Matteo and his band of ‘rooftoppers.’”
I couldn’t put this book down—and I used my tiny post-its to mark turns of phrases that I found especially charming. Here are a few:
“Mothers were a place to put down your heart. They were a resting stop to recover your breath.”
“’It’s the things you read at the age you are now (12) that stick. Books crowbar the world open for you.’”
“Muscles, she thought, are a thing worth having. They make the world easier to reach.”
Simultaneously fragile and enduring, stunning and subtle, heartwarming and heartbreaking, Rooftoppers is a story that will stay with you.
From her author photo, Katherine Rundell is a young woman. According to her bio, she “grew up in Africa and Europe, and is a fellow in English literature at All Souls College, Oxford.” Makes me imagine her to be as adventurous, bold, and freewheeling as her girl heroes! She has certainly written brilliant books at a relatively tender age.
As you know, I love my girl heroes! Thank you, Katherine, for bringing me more of them!
If you have this week off, get Rooftoppers and read it—aloud to someone if that’s possible!
Happy Reading!