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Library | Material Type | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Location |
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Searching... Fairfield Area Library | Children's book | 38674120132376 | JUV FICTION TREVAYN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Libbie Mill Library | Children's book | 38674115727156 | JUV FICTION TREVAYN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Tuckahoe Library | Children's book | 38674115727164 | JUV FICTION TREVAYN | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In nineteenth-century England, a boy is about to discover a mysterious mechanical world he may never escape.
Ten-year-old Jack Foster has stepped through a doorway and into quite a different London.
Londinium is a smoky, dark, and dangerous place, home to mischievous metal fairies and fearsome clockwork dragons that breathe scalding steam. The people wear goggles to protect their eyes, brass grill insets in their nostrils to filter air, or mechanical limbs to replace missing ones.
Over it all rules the Lady, and the Lady has demanded a new son--a perfect flesh-and-blood child. She has chosen Jack. His only hope of escape lies with a legendary clockwork bird.
The Gearwing grants wishes--or it did, before it was broken--before it was killed. But some things don't stay dead forever.
Fans of books like Splendors and Glooms and Goblin Secrets will find Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times irresistible!
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-In this steampunk fantasy, Jack Foster, the oft-ignored son of affluent socialites in Victorian England, finds himself trapped in the land of Londonium after following an evil magician named Lorcan through a door at the base of Big Ben. Londonium, a land of metal automatons, sooty skies, and humanoid citizens with gear-augmented bodies, is run by a temperamental, ageless Lady who is desperate for a "perfect" (human) son. The story is alternately told from Jack and Lorcan's perspective, allowing readers to see London and Londonium through two very different pairs of eyes, one curious and vivacious, one warped by years of loyalty to the Lady. In Londonium, a thick layer of soot lays over the city and citizens, and there is a palpable air of hopelessness to life when Jack arrives. Jack has innate goodness and caring but is not without flaws, and his companions in this new world have their own quirks and motivations, making for a satisfying, multi-dimensional story. No one character is all good or all bad, and Trevayne explores their motivations and machinations thoroughly. The richly drawn world and inventive steampunk elements help this novel stand out from the pack of middle-grade fantasy.-Elisabeth Gattullo Marrocolla, Darien Library, CT (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her first middle-grade novel, Trevayne (Coda and Chorus) introduces Jack Foster, a discontented boy who finds an otherworldly London populated by creatures mechanical and magical. To live in smoggy, brassy Londinium is to be damaged-either injured by the mechanics of industry or corroded by pollution-and rebuilt. To be complete and healthy ("pink," as a native observes of Jack) is the exception. This "Empire of the Clouds" is ruled by the mercurial Lady who sends Lorcan, her general and once her son, to fetch her a new human boy to love. Disguising himself as a spiritualist, Lorcan ingratiates himself with Jack's seance-obsessed mother, but Jack finds the doorway into Londinium on his own, where he befriends a windup girl, her physician-mechanic creator, and a trader in souls before he's forced to join the Lady's court. Trevayne's well-wrought prose and characters like Dr. Snailwater, who fixes those his city wounds, and Lorcan, whose villainy is tempered with a sad desperation to be loved, will keep readers invested. Ages 8-12. Author's agent: Brooks Sherman, the Bent Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Jack Foster, an ordinary boy in Victorian London, follows the mysterious Lorcan Havelock through a door beneath Big Ben and finds himself in an alternate London, a strange metropolis choked with smog and populated by people and creatures who are at least partly mechanical. Jack finds that he has been lured there intentionally: the Lady of Londinium needs a new boy to replace the aging Lorcan as her "son" (think the fairy queen in "Tam Lin"). Befriended by Beth (a clockwork girl) and her maker, Jack soon leaves them: the executions Lorcan stages to flush Jack out of hiding will only cease once Jack surrenders and comes to the palace to become the Lady's precious boy. But Lorcan, besides being ruthless, is also jealous, and Jack's position is a precarious one. Can Jack and his friends activate an ancient legend to renew the world and grant Jack one final wish -- to return to his own London? Though Trevayne's story starts slowly, once action passes through to Londinium the pace picks up and the steampunk narrative starts to hum. Jack's mechanical ability is put to good use, but it is the power of loyalty and friendship that gives the story its strength and drives it to a rousing conclusion. anita l. burkam (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Feeling bored and unloved in his stuffy, late-nineteenth-century London home, Jack follows an enigmatic magician through a portal into an alternate world. There he explores the eerily familiar, yet frighteningly different city of Londinium, where brass grills embedded in the inhabitants' nostrils enable them to breathe heavily polluted air. After being ensnared by the malevolent magician and adopted by the unstable Lady, who rules the land, Jack escapes and works with his few friends to free an ancient creature that can set things right in this damaged world. Clockwork creatures, metal fairies, and industrial pollution give the fantasy a steampunk twist. Like the story's setting, its tone is bleak uncommonly so for a novel apparently aimed at middle-graders. The dramatic plot twists, more than involvement with the mostly adult characters, will draw readers to finish the story, as will the vividly described settings and smooth pacing. The black-and-white illustrations were not available for comment, though the jacket art is intriguing. An unusual take on the alternate-worlds theme.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2014 Booklist