Status
Available
Genres
Publication
Margaret K. McElderry Books (2017), 544 pages
Description
"Inside a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë have invented a game called Glass Town, where their toy soldiers fight Napoleon and no one dies. This make-believe land helps the four escape from a harsh reality: Charlotte and Emily are being sent away to a dangerous boarding school, a school they might not return from. But on this Beastliest Day, the day Anne and Branwell walk their sisters to the train station, something incredible happens: the train whisks them all away to a real Glass Town, and the children trade the moors for a wonderland all their own."--Book jacket flap.
User reviews
LibraryThing member foggidawn
On the day when Charlotte and Emily are to go back to their terrible boarding school, the four Brontë siblings (Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne) are whisked away instead to Glass Town, the country of their own making -- but even their fertile imaginations couldn't come up with some of the
I'm DNF'ing books all over the place lately, it seems! This is another one where I got a fair ways into it before giving up. To its credit, the writing is great and the fantasy setting fully realized. There's some top-notch wordplay going on, and lots of sly winks to readers who know their Brit Lit. I had two main problems with the book. First of all, it's just. So. Long. I was listening to the audio version, which doesn't help, but I had even felt some trepidation when I saw the hardcover, before I checked the audiobook out. My second problem was that Branwell was written as a nasty little brat, and reading about him was distasteful. Maybe, like Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he would have his moment of redemption later in the book -- but for the first half, at least, I felt like he was just there to be hated.
Though written as a children's fantasy, I think this book will find its true audience among Valente's many fans. I just couldn't quite manage to stick with it.
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wild things that happen to them there!I'm DNF'ing books all over the place lately, it seems! This is another one where I got a fair ways into it before giving up. To its credit, the writing is great and the fantasy setting fully realized. There's some top-notch wordplay going on, and lots of sly winks to readers who know their Brit Lit. I had two main problems with the book. First of all, it's just. So. Long. I was listening to the audio version, which doesn't help, but I had even felt some trepidation when I saw the hardcover, before I checked the audiobook out. My second problem was that Branwell was written as a nasty little brat, and reading about him was distasteful. Maybe, like Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he would have his moment of redemption later in the book -- but for the first half, at least, I felt like he was just there to be hated.
Though written as a children's fantasy, I think this book will find its true audience among Valente's many fans. I just couldn't quite manage to stick with it.
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LibraryThing member jennybeast
Fun, wildly imaginative, but just not appealing to me at this moment in time. It's me, not the book.
Awards
Maine Literary Award (Finalist — Young People's Literature — 2018)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2017
Physical description
544 p.; 1.11 inches
ISBN
1481476963 / 9781481476966
Local notes
young readers