Daniel & Esther

by Patrick Raymond

Overview

This debut YA romance by Patrick Raymond follows a young musician struggling with being defiant until he falls in love with a beautiful girl from Australia as the rest of the world faces the looming threat of war.

Moody, defiant, and recently expelled from his last school, Daniel, a musically talented teenage boy, finds himself at Dartington Hall, a progressive school in England. Even with a fresh start, the teachers at his new school find Daniel rebellious and difficult, and it’s not long before he’s in serious trouble.

But when Daniel meets Esther, a new, younger girl from Australia, her proud, distant beauty captures his heart. Initially, Daniel finds himself getting into even greater trouble trying to impress Esther until he falls under the guidance of a German composer. Even as Daniel becomes less defiant, the world around him and Esther begins to crumble with the constant threat of war forcing the two of them apart.

“In his first YA novel, British writer Raymond evokes the desperation of first love with such gripping immediacy that it takes the breath away.” — Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416967989
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	11/14/2007
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Patrick Raymond is the author of Daniel & Esther, a Simon & Schuster book.

Editorial Reviews

Though the book's cover, with its teen couple superimposed over sheet music and legions of Nazi soldiers, is misleading, this effulgent tale is of young love played against the lush scenery of coastal Devon in England. A ``problem child'' at 13 in 1936, Daniel, the narrator, has been sent to the progressive Dartington Hall school. There he gets into greater trouble trying to impress Esther, an Austrian girl. He eventually comes into his own under the tutelage of Joachim Schultz, a German composer. Over the next three years, Daniel's love for Esther--and music--grows, while events in Europe intrude on life at Dartington: Schultz is killed in Spain, Esther's parents are trapped in Austria and everyone talks of war. Daniel's suite for strings, inspired by Esther, is performed for the school just before the summer holiday of 1939. But his world shatters the next day when he learns that he is to go to America and Esther to Vienna, perhaps never to meet again. In his first YA novel, British writer Raymond evokes the desperation of first love with such gripping immediacy that it takes the breath away. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 7-9-- The shadow of advancing destruction and terror that became World War lI is the framework for this novel about young lovers, destined to be torn apart when the war finally begins. Daniel, a rebellious and mischievous student at a progressive British boarding school, comes to adore Esther, who attends the same school because her parents, anti-Fascists in Nazi-dominated Austria, fear for her safety. For three years, from 1936 to 1939, Daniel and Esther depend on each other for comfort, friendship, and an emotional safety that matures into love as they grow from childhood to adolescence. Daniel tells his story from the safe haven of America, where he has been sent as an evacuee when the war begins. However, it reads as if it were the writing of an adult remembering, rather than a youthful memoir. Portions of the plot seem forced (Daniel's flirtation with music in his childhood becomes genius when nurtured by a compassionate music master). More seriously, Raymond loses the dramatic effect on which the book depends because this generation of young readers must bring to the story a knowledge of history that most will not have: the roots of World War II, the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War, the human toll before the war began. Although Raymond sometimes implies information, or briefly hints at it, Esther's return to Austria, where she will face terrible danger, loses its impact because readers will not understand the implications for her. This is not a novel of action but rather of feelings, but Raymond has not given his readers enough information to make the book a successful evocation of love in a time of impending disaster. --Marjorie Lewis, Scarsdale Junior High School, NY

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