★ 06/20/2016
LaFleur’s endearing novel takes place in a fictional land during an unspecified, escalating war. As 12-year-old Mathilde Joss’s hometown comes under increasing attacks, an offer to join the Adolescent Army for handsome pay to those selected tempts many families. Mathilde reluctantly sits for the aptitude exam and is shocked to be accepted—without her best friend Megs. Frightened about going to war and heartbroken over leaving her family and friend, Mathilde is surprised to arrive at a huge mansion, where the Adolescent Army is comfortably housed while they decode messages, predict bomb strikes, and set their nimble minds to help with the war effort. Confused as to what her own contribution might be and consumed with guilt over being protected when her family is not, she soon receives an unusual assignment that provokes questions of enmity, loyalty, and trust. LaFleur (Listening for Lucca) creates a warm boarding-school setting peopled with kind adults and children alike. Readers will be drawn in by the underlying belief that kids’ work is important and powerful, and eager for the promised sequel. Ages 8–12. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. (Sept.)
Beautiful Blue World
Narrated by Christy Carlson Romano
Suzanne LaFleurUnabridged — 5 hours, 5 minutes
Beautiful Blue World
Narrated by Christy Carlson Romano
Suzanne LaFleurUnabridged — 5 hours, 5 minutes
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Overview
*
Sofarende is at war. For twelve-year-old Mathilde, it means food shortages, feuding neighbors, and bombings. Even so, as long as she and her best friend, Megs, are together, they'll be all right.
*
But the army is recruiting children, and paying families well for their service. If Megs takes the test, Mathilde knows she will pass. Megs hopes the army is the way to save her family. Mathilde fears it might separate them forever.
*
This touching and suspenseful novel is a brilliant reimagining of war, where even kindness can be a weapon, and children have the power to see what adults cannot.
Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year,*Outstanding Merit
ILA-CBC Choices Reading Lists, Teacher's Choice
Junior Library Guild Selection
Nominated for multiple state awards
Editorial Reviews
Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award Master List
“Mathilde is timid and strong, childlike and complex, vividly narrating her story in great detail, encompassing myriad characters and events, all without censoring her fears and confusion about the nature of war and a world turned upside down, while somehow still managing to believe something better is possible. Deeply emotional, compelling, and brilliant.”—Kirkus Reviews starred review
"LaFleur (Listening for Lucca) creates a warm boarding-school setting peopled with kind adults and children alike. Readers will be drawn in by the underlying belief that kids’ work is important and powerful, and eager for the promised sequel."—Publishers Weekly starred review
"Writing in the first person, LaFleur crafts a protagonist who is compassionate and resourceful, in a war-ravaged world in which children are, by turns, exploited and empowered. The tension is high and danger ever present."— School Library Journal starred review
★ 07/01/2016
Gr 5–8—The country of Sofarende is at war. Mathilde and Megs, both 12, are best friends. When the military begins recruiting children for the war effort, their school holds an examination for students ages 12 to 14. Those who pass the test will be sent somewhere to help with the war effort. In exchange, their families will receive a large sum of money as well as monthly payments. Megs wants to do it for the sake of her family and also to assuage her sadness over the absence of her father, who has gone away to fight. Mathilde doesn't want to sign up to take the test, but her parents believe it would be best for her future. To Mathilde's astonishment, she is the only student selected. She soon leaves behind Megs, her parents, and her two little sisters. She arrives at a remote location where about 80 children are housed in an old mansion, along with soldiers and other adults. At first, Mathilde doesn't understand what the children are doing. They seem to be playing strategy games. After a few days, she realizes that they are tracking the progress of the war, monitoring transmissions, and producing intelligence used to stop the progress of the enemy. Mathilde is given another job, though. She is sent to talk to Rainer, a prisoner of war, with whom she soon develops a close relationship. Writing in the first person, LaFleur crafts a protagonist who is compassionate and resourceful, in a war-ravaged world in which children are, by turns, exploited and empowered. The tension is high and danger ever present. Though this book ends on a tense cliff-hanger, a sequel is planned. VERDICT Dark, complex, and highly discussable, this novel would be a strong pairing with Sara Pennypacker's Pax, another work that contemplates war and its effects.—Kathy Kirchoefer, Henderson County Public Library, NC
The story takes place in the fictional country of Sofarende. Narrator Christy Romano expresses the tenderness among Mathilde’s family members even as they’re threatened by the bombings in their war-torn town. When Mathilde is given the opportunity to contribute to the war effort and her family’s financial well-being, her parents think it’s for the best. She passes an “adolescent army aptitude test” and is paid for her impending service. Before she knows it, Mathilde’s hidden in a secret location inhabited by brilliant children who decipher patterns, information, and codes. Mathilde feels inferior—though Romano makes her talents clear—until she’s given a special mission at which she excels. Through Mathilde’s viewpoint, Romano illuminates the horrific effects of war. Listeners disappointed by the cliff-hanger ending will welcome the sequel. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
★ 2016-05-18
War is raging in Sofarende, and it will have profound and devastating effects on 12-year-old Mathilde. No one is safe.When children are tested to determine their suitability for war-related service, Mathilde is selected and sent to Faetre, a secret location where no communication with family or friends is allowed. Children there solve intricate problems with results immediately applied to the war effort. Mathilde's skills are different; her sole assignment is to develop a connection with Rainer, a young Tyssian POW—blond, blue-eyed, and white, just like her. Her empathy and kindness lead to a sharing of their mutual sadness, loneliness, and fear, through paintings of horror and beautiful peace, when words no longer suffice. When Faetre is abandoned, a compassionate decision puts her in even greater danger, but readers will be relieved to know that a sequel is planned. LaFleur creates an alternate, Europe-like landscape with an aggressor nation waging war on its neighbors. Names and descriptions contain just enough hints of a different language base to maintain the illusion of otherness. Mathilde is timid and strong, childlike and complex, vividly narrating her story in great detail, encompassing myriad characters and events, all without censoring her fears and confusion about the nature of war and a world turned upside down, while somehow still managing to believe something better is possible. Deeply emotional, compelling, and brilliant. (Fiction. 10-14)
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169323702 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 09/13/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Age Range: | 8 - 11 Years |
Read an Excerpt
1
Megs and I froze on my front step.
We’d seen the notices on our walk home, pinned to every door, fluttering in the chill winter breeze: white butterflies tacked down, wishing to fly free.
It was better to think of them that way, like butterflies.
Because they also looked like white flags of surrender.
“Did you get one?” I asked, craning my neck to check two doors down, where Megs lived.
“Everyone did.”
I looked at her, my best friend and opposite-twin, her dark braids mirroring my light ones. She realized the edge in her tone. It had snuck in, at least once a day, since her father had left to fight. Been ordered to fight.
It’s not you she’s mad at.
Her bright blue eyes, watering in the cold, took me in. A smile came to them as one appeared across her pink, chapped cheeks. “Come on, let’s see what mine says.” She offered her hand, led me past the Hellers’ between us, to her own house. “See, we’re assigned together! Whatever it is, it won’t be so bad, Mathilde.”
“But—why do we need shelter assignments?”
Mother, waiting for me to get home, opened our front door. She saw me and smiled, lifted her hand to wave. But then she spotted the notices across the street and turned to read ours. She grew very still; her smile disappeared.
Mrs. Heller opened her door, too. She read her notice, looked around at all of us. Her face swelled like a boiled red potato.
“Now you’re going to be living at my house?”
“Living? How long do you expect us to be down there?” Mother asked.
“Who knows? Maybe forever. But your family’s not to become a burden on our family; you’d better send over some food stores—”
“Food stores? I’m not sending my food stores over to your basement. You’ll eat them!”
“Are you accusing me of being a thief?”
“That’s what you’ve implied I am!”
My little sisters came to the doorway: Kammi, who had beaten me home from school, and Tye, blouse untucked and short braids falling out. I raced home, Megs at my heels. “Come on,” I said to my sisters. “Come inside.”
I quickly shut the door. The house was cold. There wasn’t enough fuel for fires during the day anymore.
“Here, Tye, let’s find your sweater.” A sweater that had once been mine, and then Kammi’s, and now had patches on the elbows.
“Catch me!” Tye shrieked.
She didn’t need to know that I felt wobbly, that we might be headed to live in the basement next door. I chased her into the living room, grabbed her by the ankles, and held her upside down.
“I’m upside down! I’m upside down!” She giggled.
Poor Tye had never known the world right-side up. Before Tyssia decided they wanted all of it for themselves; before they took over the Skaven lands, before they joined with Erobern.
Before they were coming for us.
Mother came in and slammed the door. I dropped Tye, who rolled away, laughing.
“Why are we going to the Hellers’ basement?” I asked Mother.
“Ours is too shallow.”
“Too shallow for what?”
I followed her into the kitchen, where she loaded up a box with tins and jars. There hadn’t been that much in the pantry to begin with. Don’t grumble, don’t grumble, I told my stomach as the shelves emptied.
Mother handed me the heavy box, adjusting the red scarf around my neck and freeing my braids. “Take this next door.”
Was she afraid, like Mrs. Heller, that we were going to have to live in their basement?
For how long?
Forever?
I looked at Megs, who shrugged.
“Why don’t you do your homework at Megs’s house?” Mother said.
“Why is she mad at you? You didn’t ask the government to send those notices.”
And wouldn’t Mrs. Heller want to help us, if there was some kind of emergency? She was our neighbor. Kammi played with her daughter.
Mother smiled, grazed her knuckle down my cheek. “Don’t you worry. Run along.”
Megs and I walked to the Hellers’ in silence. Megs knocked. When Mrs. Heller answered, she looked less like a boiled potato, but she took our box with a huff and slammed the door.
“It’s probably like a drill,” Megs said as we walked to her house. “Like fire drills at school. We practice those all the time, and have we ever had a fire? No. We’ll probably never have to go to her stupid basement.”
She ripped down her family’s notice on the way through the door. She stopped to look me in the eye.
“Even if we do, we’ll be together. Whatever happens, I’ll be with you.”
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Beautiful Blue World"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Suzanne LaFleur.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Children's Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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