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Sign of the Ravenby Julie Hearn
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Mind the gap. Something odd is going on in the basement of an old house in London. An inexplicable gap has formed, a gap in time that links the present to the past. And twelve-year-old Tom, who discovers the gap while on a visit to his grandmother, is torn between both worlds. Lured by a mysterious voice, Tom leaps into the early eighteenth century, to a time when circus "freaks" like the Bendy Man and the Gorilla Woman appeared at Bartholomew Fair. The voice he hears belongs to Astra, a tiny changeling child, whose limbs are no bigger than a man's thumb. She has called him into the past, because she is convinced that Tom is the only one who can help her and her friends from danger. Doctors are paying a high price for unusual bodies to dissect, and Astra and her friends are prime subjects. But Tom is dealing with difficulties of his own. His mum has cancer and is constantly fighting with his gran. And then he discovers a dark secret in his family's past...a secret that pulls the strands of time together and might just close the gap forever. Review:"Twelve-year-old Tom is determined to make the best of a visit to his grandmother's townhouse in a seedy area of London. From his childhood visits there, he remembers a 'gap' in her basement, and when Tom leaps over, he finds himself in Bartholomew Fair — an early 18th-century 'freak' show featuring human 'monsters.' They are the target of a doctor who will stop at nothing to 'anatomize' such creatures in the interests of science. Astra, a 'Changeling Child,' commandeers Tom to help foil the doctor's schemes. His ability to move between time periods may be just what she and her friends need. Hearn (The Minister's Daughter) vividly portrays the main characters — Tom, his mother and Astra. The compassion Tom feels and the fears he harbors for both of the other characters drive the plot, and Tom's ingenuity and humor lead to many entertaining episodes. The author drops hints that Tom's mother, like Astra, has been a victim, of sexual abuse. The lucid prose allows readers to almost smell the dankness of Tom's grandmother's basement and to feel the 'cobwebby nub' of a doorhandle or the 'blistered surface of the basement door,' leading down to the 'gap,' and the dated speech of the 'freaks' is easily comprehensible through the lively dialogue. An absorbing book with a valuable lesson. Ages 12-up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Julie Hearn [is] someone whose work I always read with pleasure." Philip Pullman Review:"Sign of the Raven leaps so many gaps...between present and past, good and evil, life and death, the ordinary and the truly extraordinary." Geraldine McCaughrean Review:"Hearn brilliantly explores the emotional range of both child and mother as they grapple with her mortality and uses the 17th-century world as a vehicle to allow Tom to come to terms with both his feelings and his dawning understanding of his mother as a human being in her own right." Kirkus Reviews Synopsis:A gap has formed in time, and 12-year-old Tom is torn between both worlds. Lured by a mysterious voice, he leaps into the early 18th century where circus "freaks" convince him he is the only one who can save them from medical experimentation. About the AuthorJulie Hearn was born in Abingdon, England, near Oxford, and has been writing all her life. After studying to be a journalist, she worked in Australia and lived in Spain, before returning to England, where she worked as a features editor and columnist. She is now a full-time writer. Her first book published in the United States was The Minister's Daughter. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 1 comment: 
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