Clair de Lune [Hardcover]

Cassandra Golds (Author), Sophie Blackall (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Clair-de-Lune lives with her grandmother in the tippy-top of a peculiar old building. Every day she practices ballet, just like her mother before her—the famous ballerina who died when Clair-de-Lune was just a baby. Since that day, Clair-de-Lune hasn’t uttered a word.
Then one day the girl who cannot speak meets a remarkable mouse who can. Bonaventure dreams of founding a dancing school just for mice—but he dreams of helping his new friend, too. Soon the brave little mouse introduces Clair-de-Lune to a hidden world inside, and yet somehow beyond, her building—a world that slowly begins to open her heart. Maybe one day her dreams will come true, too.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6–Clair-de-Lune's mother died when she was a baby, and the girl has never been able to speak. She is treated meanly by the other students at her ballet school because of her talent and her inability to communicate. She lives with her grandmother who is determined that her granddaughter will never experience love because her mother died on stage from what the elderly woman believes was a broken heart. Surprisingly, Clair-de-Lune is now going to perform this same ballet in spite of misgivings by almost everyone, including the child herself. The young ballerina's only friend is a mouse named Bonaventure. He is definitely the warmest and most interesting character in the story. He has fallen in love with classical dance and is determined to create a mouse ballet. Before he can realize his dream, however, he is killed by a cat, and the other mice perform it in his honor. Through Bonaventure's friendship, Clair-de-Lune finds her father and her voice and perhaps a happy future. This is a curious, melancholy story with a young heroine who is malnourished both physically and spiritually. It is hard to determine the audience for this book. Although Bonaventure might add spark, it is not enough to attract many readers.–Carol Schene, formerly at Taunton Public Schools, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-5. Set in an unnamed European city in a time "years before Anna Pavlova conquered the world with The Dying Swan," this charismatic, ballet-themed first novel nods to Dickens, Noel Streatfield, and the magical atmosphere of Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux (2003). Twelve-year-old Clair-de-Lune, the mute daughter of a great ballerina who perished onstage, has dancing talent of her own--but "as each day passed the weight of things unsaid grew heavier and heavier on her heart." Her uncompromising, ballet-obsessed grandmother seems not to notice, but a sympathetic talking mouse and a wise monk help to reconnect Clair-de-Lune with her identity and her voice. It may be difficult for some readers to find their footing within this gossamer parable, which enfolds an enchanted monastery, the world's first all-mouse ballet company, and forces of destiny hidden in the folds of heirloom tutus. But the timeless cadences of Golds' storytelling will coax many--especially young balletomanes--into an engagement with the novel's deeper and occasionally darker themes, among them, the shock of unexpected grief. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (February 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375833951
• ISBN-13: 978-0375833953
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.7 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,920,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cassandra Golds was born in Sydney, Australia, and grew up reading Hans Christian Andersen, C.S. Lewis and Nicholas Stuart Gray over and over again -- and writing her own stories as soon as she could hold a pen. Her first book, Michael and the Secret War, was accepted for publication when she was nineteen years old. In collaboration with the artist Stephen Axelsen, she went on to write a string of flamboyantly themed graphic novels, all of which were published as monthly serials in an Australian children's literary magazine, the New South Wales School Magazine.

She wrote Clair-de-Lune after coming upon the fascinating fact that many people have difficulty in saying their own name without 'pulling back' their voice. The Museum of Mary Child, her latest novel, was inspired by a nightmare.
"I dreamed a whole chapter of that book," she says. "It's the one where Heloise first sees inside the Museum. But the rest of it I made up while I was awake!"

You can visit her website at www.cassandragolds.com.au

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lovely Tale, July 20, 2006

By 

Amanda Fetters - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Clair de Lune (Hardcover)

Despite its (minor) flaws, Golds' story is a pleasure to read. It is the story of a girl who discovers life's greatest gift - the gift of love - and the ability she has inside herself to embrace that gift as she overcomes fear. It is sweet and delicate in the best of ways - written for girls and women (okayokay, men, too) who love beauty & dancing & appreciate the difficulties of shyness (or should). Golds does use the expression "Ah!" way too much, and is in many ways suspiciously reminiscent of DiCamillo's "The Tale of Despereaux." I agree with the above review about the recent wave of sentimentality in children's literature, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. This book is ultimately absorbing, lovely, and deeply touching.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful blend of fictitious reality with fantasy, March 25, 2006

By 

A Customer (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clair de Lune (Hardcover)

Clair-de Lune is a young ballet student living in an old city many years past. Her mother and grandmother were ballet dancers. In fact, Clair-de-Lune's mother, La Lune (which means "the moon") was a famous, much loved ballerina who died at a very young age while dancing on the stage. She left her baby daughter to be raised by a strict grandmother in the attic of an old and mystical apartment building just behind the theatre. Ever since the night of La Lune's death, Clair-de-Lune has never spoken a word. Everyone believes it is because of the tragic loss of her young mother that the child's lips and voice do not utter any sounds.

However, Clair-de-Lune speaks a special language. "When she was dancing, her arms and legs spoke, and her hands and feet spoke, and her body and the carriage of her head spoke, too. And she felt that just a little of the weight of her heart, the weight of things unsaid, would be lifted." And so Clair-de-Lune loves everything about the dance because it offers her the chance to discover her own story, the story of how she came to be a young dancer raised by her grandmother in a rickety apartment building six stories high.

The days of Clair-de-Lune are strictly spent taking ballet class from Monsieur Dupoint (whose studio happens to be on the third floor of the apartment building), studying practical school subjects at home with her grandmother, and running brief errands to the market. It is the regimented life of a ballerina-in-training overseen with great care and consternation by her grandmother, until the little girl who cannot speak encounters a little mouse who can speak very well! Bonaventure is a brave talking, dancing mouse who leads Clair-de-Lune on an adventure where she meets a fanciful array of characters who help her learn about true love and how love is the reason for life, especially her own.

Cassandra Golds masters the difficult literary feat of mixing fictitious reality with fantasy. Some readers may be put off by the blurry lines between the factual and the fantastic, but Golds has truly captured in writing the whimsy that every ballet production relies on: genuine people dancing magical stories and making the fanciful appear truly alive.

--- Reviewed by Joy Held

4.0 out of 5 stars Clair de Lune, July 6, 2011

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Clair de Lune (Kindle Edition)

I had received a kindle for my birthday, so I downloaded this book, because I had read Ms. Gold's book, "The Museum of Mary Child" and loved it. I have not finished the book yet, but I found it a lovely tale, but with one error: It almost looked that someone with dyslexia had written this kindle version, because some words were jumbled up in a most unusual way. It happens quite frequently, and is very annoying. Other than that, I love the story, and I applaud Cassandra Golds at another book well done!