Midnight Blue - Softcover

Pauline Fisk is the author of Midnight Blue a highly original fantasy which won the Smarties Book Prize in 1990 and several other children's novels. She lives with her family in Shropshire.

Grade 6-9-An enjoyable fantasy that offers food for thought. Bonnie is trapped between the possibility of happiness with her mother and the reality that her controlling grandmother, "Grandbag," will never leave them alone. As Bonnie says, "She sees things, you see, and they have to be hers.- And it's not just things- It's people too. If someone's hers, she'll never let them go-." When Bonnie sees a neighbor blowing up a big, blue hot-air balloon, she tries to sneak aboard and inadvertently takes off alone. When she arrives in the "world beyond the sky," she finds that it looks exactly like her world-same people, same buildings, but with some definite differences- some of them scary. She meets the family she always wanted- her double lives happily with her mother, her father, and a new baby sister. Unfortunately, evil Grandbag's double also arrives in the village and has her sights set on her granddaughter's new family. Bonnie must try to save them, and herself, and in the process finds the courage to return home. The conclusion leaves open the possibility that happy endings do happen, and that just maybe, Bonnie will finally have the peace and happiness she has always longed for. This book is reminiscent of Madeleine L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" series, with the characters learning more of themselves in other worlds and translating that knowledge into their everyday lives at home.
Saleena L. Davidson, South Brunswick Public Library, Monmouth Junction, NJ
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