Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.
Description
Using a mysterious wardrobe that allows them to travel through time, two eleven-year-olds, Federico a boy from the Italian Renaissance and Bee a girl from present-day New Jersey, work together to prevent the bickering between two great artists from changing the future.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RBeffa
This book has only been out for several days and I saw it as a new release at my library. I took a chance on this middle-school level book when I read a few comments about it. It began as a pure delight. Historical fantasy with lots of detail from 1511 Rome with a young boy, Federico, held
However when the story jumps to the present this adventure begins to stumble. The puzzle pieces don't quite fit. Just how old is the old woman? 110 and something? Where has Juno the time cat been for nearly a century? What first began to bother me was all the machinations trying to create a sense of urgency in the present with delayed trains and phone calls and so on. The charm that was with us at the start was rather suddenly gone although there were some clever moments.
But ... when we return to Rome in 1511 the story picks up again, thankfully, and gets quite exciting when Federico gives chase to Michelangelo, riding Bathsheba, the fastest horse in Rome.
This proved to be a very entertaining book. There are some very nice chapter decorations drawn by Paul Zelinsky as a little bonus.
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'hostage' by the Pope as Raphael and Michelangelo paint the papal quarters and Sistine Chapel. Slightly irreverant and reminiscent of books like 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe' with a wardrobe here invented by Leonardo Da Vinci whose cat goes time travelling. The interactions between Federico and others in 1511 were fun.However when the story jumps to the present this adventure begins to stumble. The puzzle pieces don't quite fit. Just how old is the old woman? 110 and something? Where has Juno the time cat been for nearly a century? What first began to bother me was all the machinations trying to create a sense of urgency in the present with delayed trains and phone calls and so on. The charm that was with us at the start was rather suddenly gone although there were some clever moments.
But ... when we return to Rome in 1511 the story picks up again, thankfully, and gets quite exciting when Federico gives chase to Michelangelo, riding Bathsheba, the fastest horse in Rome.
This proved to be a very entertaining book. There are some very nice chapter decorations drawn by Paul Zelinsky as a little bonus.
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LibraryThing member JulieStielstra
As a lover of cats and art history, I had high hopes for this story. They were not fulfilled. The author clearly has done an enormous amount of research to get the details of early 16th-century Rome right, and then falls victim to the temptation to write them ALL into every page - every dish at
Clumsy writing, tenuous plot machinery, and charmless characters... just didn't work for me.
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several banquets, every item of clothing worn. The writing is often repetitive: she tells us multiple times in a single scene that Michelangelo stinks. She tells us - over and over - that Federico wants a friend. Paradoxically, there are elements of the art and artists and assumptions that *I* (as an adult art history grad) "got" that I'm not sure the intended middle-grade reader would, or would find terribly appealing. When the setting and characters shifted to present-day America, the carpentry just broke down and I bailed.Clumsy writing, tenuous plot machinery, and charmless characters... just didn't work for me.
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LibraryThing member Amzzz
A cute little book about time travel and famous artists
Awards
Nevada Young Readers' Award (Nominee — 2024)
CCBC Choices (2022)
Language
ISBN
9780063015258