About this item
With the United States on the verge of World War II, eleven-year-old Gusta is sent from New York City to Maine, where she discovers small-town prejudices - and a huge family secret.Its 1941, and tensions are rising in the United States as the Second World War rages in Europe. Eleven-year-old Gustas life, like the world around her, is about to change. Her father, a foreign-born labor organizer, has had to flee the country, and Gusta has been sent to live in an orphanage run by her grandmother. Nearsighted, snaggletoothed Gusta arrives in Springdale, Maine, lugging her one precious possession: a beloved old French horn, her sole memento of her father. But in a family thats long on troubles and short on money, how can a girl hang on to something so valuable and yet so useless when Gustas mill-worker uncle needs surgery to fix his mangled hand, with no union to help him pay? Inspired by her mothers fanciful stories, Gusta secretly hopes to find the coin-like "Wish" that her sea-captain grandfather supposedly left hidden somewhere. Meanwhile, even as Gusta gets to know the rambunctious orphans at the home, she feels like an outsider at her new school - and finds herself facing patriotism turned to prejudice, alien registration drives, and a family secret likely to turn the small town upside down.
About the Author
Anne Nesbet writes books for kids and watches a lot of silent films. She lives near San Francisco with her husband, several daughters, and one irrepressible dog. THE CABINET OF EARTHS (HarperCollins 2012) is her first novel; it tells the story of twelve-year-old Maya Davidson's tangle with some very old magic in Paris. Houses with bronze salamanders for door handles, statues that look too much like Maya's own worried face, a man wearing sunglasses to hide his radiant purple eyes-nothing is what it seems. To keep her family safe, Maya must make new friends (a cousin who is so unremarkable, she's actually hard to see; a Bulgarian boy named Valko who has practice not-fitting-in all over the world) and take on the magical underworld of Paris. More adventures of Maya and Valko appear in A BOX OF GARGOYLES, which came out in 2013. You can visit her online at www.annenesbet.com.
