The Orphanage of Miracles

by Amy Neftzger

Overview

Perhaps everyone could use a miracle, but very few will find the one they truly need.

Amid a war torn land, hidden deep within an enchanted forest, hides an orphanage where miracles abound. It s a magical place built by a resolute king who is determined to defeat an evil sorcerer waging bitter war against his people. Victory just might take a miracle, and so the orphanage may very well hide the key to winning the war.

A young girl named Kelsey also desperately needs a miracle. She embarks on a quest to find the mysterious and hidden orphanage. Along the way she s joined by several traveling companions, including an over-sized snow leopard and a boy who cannot speak. In a land enchanted, it's difficult to know the difference between what's real and what isn't ... and what a true friend looks like. Join Kelsey and her companions as they embark on an extraordinary adventure and a quest unlike any other.

The Orphanage of Miracles is a middle grade fiction book that examines the concept of miracles and what it takes to find or make the one you need.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940045999441
Publisher:	Fog Ink
Publication date:	05/22/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	5 - 11 Years

About the Author

Amy Neftzger (born June 23) is an American researcher and author who has published fiction books, non-fiction books, business articles, and peer review research. Her works have reached an international audience. Amy was born in Illinois and graduated from Elk Grove High School in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. She received her bachelors degree from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida and her Masters in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She graduated from both Universities with honors. She has written numerous business and journal articles, but her fiction works have been the most commercially successful. In 2003 she published Conversations with the Moon, which was also translated into Korean and published in South Korea. In 2005 she collaborated with her husband, guitarist Tyra Neftzger on a children's book called "All that the Dog Ever Wanted." The book was designed to introduce children to jazz music at an early age and included a CD sampler of jazz tunes. In 2007 she worked as an editor on a business fable called "The Damned Company." She's also written "Confessions From a Moving Van" and "Leftover Shorts." In 2013, Amy released her first Young Adult book called "The Orphanage of Miracles." The sequel to this book, "The Orchard of Hope" is scheduled for release in June of 2014, and The Ferryman (adult fiction) is scheduled for release in October, 2014.

Editorial Reviews

An earnestly optimistic and uplifting fairy tale. --Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Neftzger (Confessions from a Moving Van, 2012) makes a promising entry into young-adult fantasy with this sincere, whimsical allegory that's built on the trope of the hero's quest and explores themes of freedom, creativity and teamwork. In a country where a sorcerer confuses perceptions so deeply that the people don't know whether their war against him is even real, young Kelsey, hoping to help her family, begins a journey to find the rumored Orphanage of Miracles. Kelsey purchases a jar of bad memories as a shortcut to building character; a mishap with the jar brings her a silent but wise boy, whom everyone naturally loves, as a traveling companion. A talking leopard they meet in the woods agrees to be their guide to traverse changing lands and evade guardians who seem to block their way. Meanwhile, deep within a forest no one dares enter, the orphanage hoards sparkling, jewellike miracles in a locked garden for the king, while the children in the strange boarding school have lost the ability to even read. Friends Jovan, Maggie and Nicholas spend their days trying to catch miracles in butterfly nets, mine them from underground or create them in a laboratory. They also anxiously cultivate the individual plants they have been assigned, knowing that if a child's plant dies, he disappears from the orphanage as if he never existed. But they long to solve the mystery of why, despite the elaborate systems the adults have built, they have never seen the discovery of a miracle. The presentation of morality lessons at the story's end is uncharacteristically heavy-handed but in line with the stylized nature of the story, offering the reader a happy ending in which the seekers are enlightened, the misguided corrected, all wrongs are righted and generosity and wisdom prevail. And although the final message may feel mundane, the road by which Neftzger approaches it is playful and creative. An earnestly optimistic and uplifting fairy tale.

Kirkus Reviews