The Star of Kazan [Mass Market Paperback]

Eva Ibbotson (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 5-8–Abandoned as a baby, Annika is found and adopted by Ellie and Sigrid, cook and housemaid for three professors. Growing up in early-20th-century Vienna, she learns to cook and clean and is perfectly happy until a beautiful aristocrat appears and claims to be her mother, sweeping her off to a new life in a crumbling castle in northern Germany. Annika is determined to make the best of things, and it takes a while for her to realize that her new "family" has many secrets, most of them nasty. With the help of Ellie, Sigrid, the professors, and friends old and new, Annika escapes from a ghastly fate and learns to face the truth about her relatives. Winding like a braid through this story is a mystery involving a chest of worn costumes and junk jewelry left to Annika by an old woman she has befriended. This is a rich saga in the tradition of Frances Hodgson Burnett, full of stalwart friends, sly villains, a brave heroine, and good triumphing over evil. Annika's determination to do the right thing is both laudable and utterly frustrating, especially when readers realize that her loyalty is misplaced. Almost every character is distinct, but the ones that stand out are the "regular folk," individuals whose sense of decency propels them into amazing acts of courage. Vienna itself is colorfully portrayed, brimming with pastries, coffee, and dancing Lipizzaner horses. An intensely satisfying read.–Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 4-8. Ibbotson's latest is a galloping historical novel set in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Abandoned as an infant, 12-year-old Annika lives in Vienna with the cook and housemaid who discovered her as well as their employers, a sibling trio of eccentric professors. Annika helps with the housework and grows up comfortably in the warm house on a beautiful square, surrounded by friends. Still, Annika dreams of reuniting with the unknown parents who abandoned her, and when an elegant, charismatic woman appears, birth certificate in hand, Annika embraces her as her long-lost mother and agrees to move to the family's remote northern castle. The grand estate isn't what she expected, though, and she fights waves of homesickness as troubling clues begin to emerge about her new family. Ibbotson leads her characters through a delightful, breathless adventure that skillfully enfolds deliciously cruel villains, crumbling aristocratic families, stolen jewels, and a cast of lovable, intrepid professors and children determined to rescue Annika from danger. Viennese-born Ibbotson layers her suspenseful story with exquisite details that contrast the city's cozy clamor with the bone-chilling northern landscape, beautifully echoing Annika's plight. Masterful entertainment in the tradition of Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962), this will please Harry Potter readers, too. Hawkes' lively black-and-white drawings extend the adventure and nostalgic flavor. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (April 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142405825
• ISBN-13: 978-0142405826
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #62 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > History & Historical Fiction > Fiction > Europe

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good morning, starshine, August 4, 2005

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Star of Kazan (Hardcover)

Some children's books read like your standard kiddie fare. A mystery here, an intriguing character there, mix it altogether and phoomp! One piece of child fiction for general consumption. There are other children's books in the world, however, that resemble nothing so much as sumptuous feasts. Books that you'd swear had more in common with three act plays and bewitching flights of fancy than you'd find in something like, "How To Eat Fried Worms". You read one of these books, you finish it, and you scratch your head wondering how the English-speaking/reading children of the world lucked out to have THIS kind of book on their library and bookstore shelves. Prior to this title, Eva Ibbotson was a kind of British pre-J.K. Rowling fantasy author. Her books (like "The Island of the Aunts" and "Which Witch") were sweet but not particularly entrancing. She treated her fantasy in an offhand kind of way. As if ghosts and mermaids and selkies were only vaguely interesting characters to come and go as they pleased. It seems obvious now that she's been toiling in the wrong genre. "The Star of Kazan" marks yet another Ibbotson foray into a fantastical world that's almost too interesting to call historical fiction, but too informative to be relegated as anything else. It is, without a doubt, her finest work put to paper.

Annika has a daydream that's been hers and hers alone for years. Found as an orphan in a deserted church, Annika dreams of someday meeting her real mother. A mother who's rich and elegant and smells nice. Not that the girl has a bad life of it. She was adopted early on by a pair of servants who work for three neurotic professors in the heart of Vienna. Annika loves her life, and has grown to be quite an accomplished cook. She even befriends the dying great-aunt of the snobby little girl across the street and learns to deal with death. Then, everything changes. Like something out of a dream, Annika's mother (Edeltraut von Tannenberg) arrives and is just as glamorous and beautiful as her daughter could have wanted. Without further ado she whisks her newfound child back with her to a drafty old mansion in Spittal, Germany. Once there, Annika has a difficult time adjusting to her new life. She makes friends with the local gypsy boy who tends the horses, but her half-brother is cold, the rooms are always freezing, there's very little food, and objects keep disappearing from the mansion. It isn't long before Annika discovers a mystery that lies at the heart of her arrival in Spittal. A mystery that will be difficult for her to unravel without friends.

When I mentioned before that this book was like nothing so much as a three act play, I wasn't kidding. I envy the schoolchildren of this world who may get a chapter a day from their teachers. There'd be no better way to appreciate the trials of Annika and her quest to find love. Stretching her literary muscles as far as they dare go, Ibbotson conjures up a Vienna that American children have never seen in such a magnificent light. Born and raised there as a child (and sent away when she was eight) Ibbotson plumbs her memories of the time she lived in sweet Austria. Here we can see horses that dance, a kind old emperor, and a tale that is much like "A Little Princess" but twisted deftly.

What Ibbotson really revels in, however, are good characters. Her books often include old women with moustaches or bratty children with spoiled attitudes. Here, she writes a mother character that seems almost to be a blood relation of the chilling Mrs. Coulter in Philip Pullman's, "His Dark Materials" series. Though Edeltraut rarely appears as anything but a beautiful mama, her slights and casual cruelties are almost invisible but frightening when discovered. One of the things that impressed me the most, however, was the character of the gypsy boy Zed. Gypsies are one of those ethnic groups that tend to get a beating in children and young adult literature. Lazy authors love to use them for magical/mysterious moments, always forgetting that gypsies are real people who live real lives. Ibbotson has not forgotten. Better still, she's presented a well-rounded portrait of a group that lives as best it can without being any better or worse than their fellow men. Zed isn't a dark mysterious boy with the ability to sense evil or nonsense of that sort. He's a kid who loves taking care of horses and who does the right thing even when it puts everything he loves into peril.

If there's a flaw to the book (and what, may I ask, is there on this good green earth that isn't flawed in some small way?) then it lies in the illustrations. Kevin Hawkes has faithfully illustrated most of Ibbotson's books in America, and his style is almost synonymous with her name. This is almost always a gifted pairing, but only when the topic is fantasy. Here, Hawkes' lighthearted pen and inks don't seem to encompass the grandeur of the tale. We hear that Zed is a thirteen-year-old with "thick, dark hair that looked as though it had been cut with shears - but his brown eyes were flecked with lighter colors, with bronze and hazel and with gold". The boy in the pictures, by contrast, looks to be eight-years-old and sports incredibly short, only slightly curly locks. This difference appears with almost every picture here. With the possible exception of the shot of Annika cleaning the floor with dusters strapped to her feet, no drawing in this book lives up to the readers' expectations. It would have been better to have left the book alone, sans illustration.

But that's neither here nor there. On top of everything I've already written, the book also has thrilling rescue sequences, good common people rising over and above haughty snobby people, redemption, falling harps, stolen jewelry, and a ferris wheel that can see the tips of distant mountains. It's a long book, but a great one. Kids who like their heroines good and their adults eccentric will find much to love here. A fabulous read and a truly fulfilling story through and through. Can't make myself recommend it enough.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich reading, December 13, 2004

By 

Camille "at the BookMoot!" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Star of Kazan (Hardcover)

A story with jewels, horses, and fantastic food--a triple treat!
Ellie and Sigrid find an abandoned baby in a church and raise her with love in the household of three brilliant but dotty professors where they work as servants. Though happy in her life, Annika dreams the dream of all foundlings, that one day her missing mother will arrive and explain why she deserted her little daughter.

She has many friends including a lonely old lady who shares the story of her life through beautiful but seemingly worthless costume jewelry.

Annika has a gift for cooking and food is deliciously described in this story.

One day Annika's mysterious mother does show up. She seems to be everything Annika ever dreamed of and she sweeps her daughter off to a decaying and crumbling estate in Germany. Compared to her simple life in Vienna where she was always warm and well fed, here the rooms are unheated and the food is served cold. Annika happily offers to help out but she is reminded she is now an aristocrat and may not cook or clean. Her only joy is working with the gifted stable boy who cares for the one remaining horse on the estate.

Old Vienna is wonderfully described from the Lipizzaner horses to the Sachar tortes! Kevin Hawkes is the illustrator of choice now for Ibbotson's books. His fine detailed drawings throughout the story are a treat for the reader.

Like "River to the Sea," this story is rich in atmosphere with great characters and a very exciting crisis and escape that satisfies completely, sort of like a bite of rich, chocolaty Sachar torte!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, June 24, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Star of Kazan (Hardcover)

My name is Miranda and I'm seven years old. My mom reads me tons of books and we listen to lots of books on tape, and this book is defenitely one of my favorites. My mom read this book to me and we both absolutely loved it. Now my older sister is reading it and so far she loves it as well. All the characters are people you can relate to. Each one of them is so different and unique from the others. At the end of the book you feel as if the characters are real live people you know. The characters are what makes the book five stars. Other favorite books of mine that I reccomend are: "Dragon Rider", "A Single Shard", and "Montmorency". Thanks! (Hope you enjoy the book!)