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Title details for The Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkoski - Wait list

The Cabinet of Wonders

#1 in series

by Marie Rutkoski
Lorelei King
Audiobook
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Marie Rutkoski's startling debut novel, the first book in the Kronos Chronicles, about the risks we take to protect those we love, brims with magic, political intrigue, and heroism.
Petra Kronos has a simple, happy life. But it's never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world's finest astronomical clock. Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home – blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn't know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father's eyes back. Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father's clock has powers capable of destroying their world.
The Cabinet of Wonders is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Kronos Chronicles

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 3, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781427205490
      • File size: 206302 KB
      • Duration: 07:09:47

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 4.9
    • Lexile® Measure: 720
    • Interest Level: 4-8(MG)
    • Text Difficulty: 3

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It's easy to see why this book is getting rave reviews. CABINET OF WONDERS is a sweet and charming fantasy, perfect for fans of ELLA ENCHANTED or THE PRINCESS ACADEMY. What's more, the audio production adds greatly to one's enjoyment. Lorelei King is a talented narrator whose superb creation of whimsical characters is beautifully done. It's hard to imagine a sweeter voice than the one she brings to Petra Kronos, whose father, a master clock-maker to the Prince, returns home one day without his eyes. The Prince has stolen his eyes so that the master can never make a clock that will surpass the Prince's, and Petra is determined to steal them back. With only her tin spider, Astrophilto, to help her she heads into adventure. D.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from August 18, 2008
      Add this heady mix of history and enchantment to the season's list of astonishingly accomplished first novels: in Rutkowski's multilayered version of late–16th-century Bohemia, magicians coexist with peasants and courtiers, a tribe of gypsies use specially endowed “ghost” fingers, and the fate of Europe hangs on the schemes of an evil prince. As the novel opens, a metalworker with extraordinary gifts has returned from Prince Rodolfo's palace in Prague, having finished his commission to build a magical clock—but the prince has gouged out his eyes, so that he can never duplicate the clock or, worse, better it. Even more disturbingly, the prince wears the eyes himself. Vowing to recover her father's eyes, 12-year-old Petra sneaks off to Prague, with little more than the company of Astrophil, an erudite tin spider who can communicate with her. Proving herself a worthy relative of, say, Philip Pullman's quick-thinking, fearless heroines, Petra navigates her way past sorceress countesses, English spy magicians, dangerous gypsies and through bewitched palace halls until Rodolfo, wearing the ill-gotten eyes, catches sight of her. Infusions of folklore (and Rutkowski's embellishments of them) don't slow the fast plot but more deeply entrance readers. Ages 10–up.

    • School Library Journal

      May 1, 2009
      Gr 5 Up-Set in 16th-century Bohemia, Petra's father, who was commissioned to build a clock for Prince Rodolfo, returns home blind. The prince gouged out his eyes so that the metalworker would never be able to create a more beautiful clock. Determined to retrieve her inventor father's eyes, the 12-year-old girl travels to Prague with Astrophil, a tin spider created by her father, to locate them. Marie Rutkoski's fantasy (Farrar Straus, 2008) is narrated by Lorelei King who gives distinct and appropriate voices to all the characters. However, while the text states that the people in Prague sound quite different, this is not reflected in the reading. Also, King sometimes replaces "want to" and "going to" with "wanna" and "gonna." Although Rutkowski takes some pains to introduce Roma (Gypsy) culture to readers, it is shocking that she perpetuates the negative stereotype of Gypsies as a culture of liars and thieves, an image Carla Stevens decried in a 1974 article, "The Image of Gypsies in Children's Literature" (Interracial Books for Children, Vol. 5), and the kind of negative stereotype that would not be acceptable about any other minority group today. Although the story is exciting and involving, this audiobook cannot be recommended for that reason."Louise L. Sherman, formerly at Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ"

      Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:4.9
  • Lexile® Measure:720
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:3

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