Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

Overview

While helping her granny Collette evacuate to a makeshift shelter in Brooklyn during Superstorm Sandy, Lily uncovers secrets of her grandmother's past as a member of the French Resistance during WWII.

Queens, 2012.

Hurricane Sandy is flooding New York City, and Lily is at a nursing home with her grandmother, Collette. Lily visits Collette often, as she is beginning to lose her memories. When the National Guard shows up to evacuate the building and take them to safety at the Park Slope armory in Brooklyn, Lily's granny suddenly produces a red box she's hidden in a closet for years. Once they get to safety, Lily opens the box, where she finds an old, beautiful Montblanc pen. Granny tells Lily that the pen is very important and that she has to take care of it, as well as some letters written in French.

But Lily loses the pen in the course of helping other nursing home residents, and as she searches the city trying to find it, she learns more about her grandmother's past in France and begins to uncover the significance of the pen with the help of her best friend, a quirky pen expert, and a larger-than-life, off-Broadway understudy. Told in alternating sections (2012 and 1944), this engaging book explores a deep friendship during difficult times and the importance of family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781499807455
Publisher:	little bee books
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	531,409
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Anne O'Brien Carelli is the author of adult nonfiction and the picture book Amina's New Friends. She has always been fascinated by the French Resistance, and studied history at Case Western Reserve University. For her PhD, Anne researched psychology of the gifted. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Anne lives in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York. This is her debut middle grade novel.

Editorial Reviews

09/03/2018
Carelli alternates contemporary and historical fiction in this novel about 12-year-old Lily and her 80-year-old, French-born maternal grandmother, Collette. The contemporary story, told by Lily, takes place in New York City over nine days in fall 2012, during Hurricane Sandy. The historical narrative offers a third-person retelling of Collette’s undertakings as a 12-year-old member of the French Resistance during WWII, lasting from winter through late summer 1944 in the South of France. Lily and Collette have always been close, and when Sandy forces evacuation of the Queens nursing home where Collette lives, Lily is by her side, helping to move and resettle residents. (Lily’s anxious mother, stuck in Manhattan, communicates worriedly via cellphone.) Interspersed with the sometimes frightening challenges of the relocation are stories of Collette’s dangerous wartime work with another young woman. When Lily loses Collette’s antique fountain pen, mysteriously precious to her grandmother, she embarks on a hunt for a replacement, which serendipitously takes Lily on an adventure in which she learns the details of her grandmother’s wartime history. While the novel doesn’t quite succeed in building suspense, and the heartwarming ending strains credibility, Carelli realistically depicts the warm, complex relationships between daughter, mother, and grandmother. Ages 8–12. Agent: Carrie Pestritto, Prospect Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Skylark and Wallcreeper is full of girls who just won't give up, whether they're facing Superstorm Sandy or resisting Nazi occupation during WWII. Anne O'Brien Carelli vividly weaves together historical and contemporary storylines to craft a tale of curiosity, courage, and kindness. Prepare to get swept up in a rich, page-turning adventure that spans generations!

author of The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle Christina Uss

A solid next choice for those who enjoyed Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's The War That Saved My Life (2015) and Alan Gratz's Refugee (2017).

Booklist

A solid next choice for those who enjoyed Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's The War That Saved My Life (2015) and Alan Gratz's Refugee (2017).

Booklist

10/01/2018
Gr 4–6—Superstorm Sandy and the French Resistance in World War II are cleverly woven together in this intergenerational story about 12-year-old Lily and her beloved grandmother, Collette. In October 2012, Lily is visiting Collette in a Queens nursing home when the storm hits. When the nursing home floods, Lily helps evacuate residents, organize food, and reassure and resettle the residents in a Brooklyn shelter. Her worried, stranded mother accedes to Lily and Collette's request to stay together until the nursing home reopens. Anxious and distraught, Collette entrusts Lily with a small red box containing a Montblanc pen of seemingly great significance. When Lily accidentally loses the pen, a frantic search begins. With the help of her best friend, Johnny; a pen expert; and his French-speaking daughter, Lily embarks on a quest to retrieve the pen and uncover her grandmother's unknown past. In alternating chapters, Collette's dangerous 1944 participation in the French Resistance in Brume, France, unfolds. Secret signatures, harrowing missions, a special friendship, and code names are revealed to readers and eventually discovered by Lily. Lily is spirited, compassionate, resourceful, and independent. This lively story is enriched by vivid depictions of Superstorm Sandy's turmoil and impact, actions of supportive staff and helpful strangers, her grandmother's daring deeds during World War II, and Lily's placating, dutiful but often disingenuous cellphone calls to her concerned mother. VERDICT Lily and her grandmother's juxtaposed stories of bravery will captivate middle grade readers and spark interest in better understanding the life, times, and experiences of older generations.—Gerry Larson, formerly at Durham School of the Arts, NC

School Library Journal

2018-09-02

The intertwined stories of one 12-year-old in hurricane-flooded New York City in 2012 and another in Nazi-occupied France in 1944.

Lily loves visiting her grandmother Colette in the nursing home despite Granny's dementia. Granny tells stories of her travels, and Lily runs errands for the staff. Superstorm Sandy forces the evacuation of the home from Queens to Brooklyn with the assistance of the National Guard. Lily's an invaluable help—soothing her grandmother and organizing food donations—but in the chaos, she loses a fountain pen of Granny's. Lily's timeline, recounted in a first-person, past-tense narration, alternates with that of 12-year-old Colette, a baker's daughter in war-torn France, in the third-person present tense. Everyone's terrified of the occupying Germans, but Colette wants to help fight the invaders somehow. Disguised as a boy, she works for the Resistance, delivering secret messages, counting German soldiers, and even derailing a train. At any moment she might be arrested and tortured, but with her new friend Marguerite, Colette's brave enough for anything. Meanwhile, in the present day, Lily's quest to find a replacement for her grandmother's lost pen takes her around flood-ravaged New York City and reveals secrets of her grandmother's past. Lily, her grandmother, and those characters with identifiable race appear to be white. The wholesome contemporary survival tale combines surprisingly well with a spy thriller packed with invisible ink, an exploding cigarette case, and all kinds of secret agent gadgets.

A quick-moving two-in-one success (Adventure/historical thriller. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews