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Fiction Literary

An Ordinary Star

by (author) Jan Thornhill

Publisher
Cormorant Books
Initial publish date
Sep 2004
Category
Literary
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781896951560
    Publish Date
    Sep 2004
    List Price
    $29.95

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Description

In her last days, Sofia Fiore remembers a time of radiance and darkness. She lived in the Twenties, when the first Zeppelin flew over Manhattan and when a solar eclipse dazzled the Bronx, N.Y. Drawn to the wondrous, she never stopped seeing extraordinary things.

In the shadows of Depression and war, she reveres her father, the good Dr. Gentile, a naïve follower of Mussolini, her mother Livia, whose fading light heralds her death and her anarchist grandparents living on the lower East Side of Manhattan. She witnesses the dramatic escape of her beloved Aunt Julia and Uncle Paul from the flaming Hindenburg — only to see them vanish. Many years later, Sofia is stricken by a missing chunk of the past as it smashes through memory. As she's dying, she grapples with a time that began in hope and ended in uncertainty until she comes to terms with her family's legacy of truth, illusion, and wonder.

About the author

Jan Thornhill is an author, illustrator and designer who brings her fascination with the natural world to her books for children. They include I Found a Dead Bird (National Parenting Publications Gold Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award); The Wildlife 123 (UNICEF-Ezra Jack Keats International Award for Excellence in Children’s Book Illustration, Governor General’s Award finalist); and The Wildlife ABC (Governor General’s Award finalist). Jan recently won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People. She spends her spare time in the woods obsessively collecting and cataloguing wild mushrooms and slime molds.

Jan Thornhill's profile page

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