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Summary
Summary
New York Times Notable Children's Books of 2012
The Wall Street Journal Best Children's Books of 2012 "This highly unusual story about a highly unusual hero will also feel like your story. Few of us are imprisoned dwarfs, but all of us want to guide our own lives." --Jonathan Safran Foer, New York Times best-selling author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close "Rich, absorbing storytelling--a terrific read in every way." --Nancy Werlin, National Book Award Finalist and author of Impossible "Delightful characters, unique setting, and lovely prose. This is historical fiction at its best!" --Ruta Sepetys, New York Times best-selling author of Between Shades of Gray Fate:
Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?
Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?
Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.
He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them; but it breaks Jepp's heart to see his friend Lia suffer.
After Jepp and Lia attempt a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe in a kidnapper's carriage, Jepp fears where his unfortunate stars may lead him. But he can't even begin to imagine the brilliant and eccentric new master--a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars--who awaits him. Or the girl who will help him mend his heart and unearth the long-buried secrets of his past.
Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real historical characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is the tale of an extraordinary hero and his inspiring quest to become the master of his own destiny.
Author Notes
Katherine Marsh is the Edgar Award-winning author of The Night Tourist and The Twilight Prisoner. She spent a decade as a journalist, including as a reporter for Rolling Stone and as managing editor of The New Republic . For her latest novel, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars, Katherine drew on her childhood fascination with the portraits of court dwarfs by Spanish painter Diego Velazquez. A New York native and a Yale graduate, she currently lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and two children.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In the final years of the 16th century, a 15-year-old dwarf named Jepp struggles to understand himself and his place in the world; he's caught between the pull of the past, the promise of the future, and the forces of fate and free will. The first of the book's three sections finds a battered and beaten Jepp being transported ignobly in a cage to an unknown destination; along the way, he recalls the events that led him there, from his humble upbringing in an inn to becoming a court dwarf in Brussels (a role in which humiliation, opportunity, and danger are closely entwined). Jepp's fortunes continue to wax and wane in the later sections, as he arrives at the island castle of astronomer Tycho Brahe. As in Marsh's The Night Tourist and The Twilight Prisoner, real history is effortlessly woven into her fiction: while Jepp has his roots in an actual dwarf who served Brahe, Marsh transforms his "footnote" of a story into an epic search for love, family, respect, and a destiny of one's own making. Ages 12-up. Agent: Alex Glass, Trident Media Group. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Living in the sixteenth century, Jepp is a 15-year-old dwarf who has never known his father. Taken from his humble home to live at court in Brussels, he enjoys the comforts and education available to him there, but he chafes at his lack of freedom and the indignity of his position as a performer. After his attempt to help a young woman ends disastrously, he is sent away to the castle of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. There he falls in love, but lingering questions about his paternity lead Jepp back to his homeland, where he finds further adventures and, eventually, answers. The book's title refers to the ongoing question of whether people are ruled by their destinies as foretold by the stars. The novel shows a good deal of research into the period as well as Brahe's life. Divided into three distinct parts, the story sprawls a bit and its pace is uneven, but the scenes are deftly written. Readers taken with the main character will want to read on and discover his fate.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
SELF-CONSCIOUS about your body? Unsure where - or if - you'll ever fit in? Wondering when people will start treating you like an adult? Katherine Marsh's "Jepp, Who Defied the Stars" delves into these perennial adolescent challenges while transporting her readers to a tiny island in Denmark in the late 16th century - and without the help of either time machine or wizard. Instead Marsh turns to one of history's real-life magicians, the brilliant, eccentric astronomer Tycho Brahe, to welcome her readers to his castle-cumobservatory, Uraniborg. A Danish noble, Brahe lacks the renown of his apprentice, Johannes Kepler, but he made similarly significant contributions to astronomy, especially for a pioneer whose work was unaided by the yet-to-be-invented telescope. Kepler's discoveries about planetary motion rest on the work of the half-scientist, half-Mad Hatter Brahe, who kept a dipsomaniac moose as a pet, and a dwarf named Jepp as court jester. In the novel the fictionalized Jepp travels from his home in Astraveld, a kind of crossroads "claimed by both the Spanish Netherlands and the Protestant North," to the Infanta Isabella's palace in Brussels, and then from Brussels on to the "intricate universe" of Uraniborg. There Jepp will be delivered from the status of a dog at Brahe's feet, dependent on scraps from his master's dinner, to that of an esteemed scientist in his own right. Narrating a young adult novel from a dwarf's perspective is nothing short of inspired. Jepp's physical form may be a ticket out of poverty to the castles of royalty and aristocrats, but it also amplifies the miseries of adolescence. Readers will feel an immediate sympathy for the eternally child-size Jepp, allowed the luxuries of court life for the price of his dignity. As demonstrated by the recent dystopian swell, the themes of Y.A. fiction - bullying, sexual confusion, substance abuse, delinquency, identity, first love and broken hearts - have never been lighthearted. But Marsh pushes these aside to focus on the central and unanswerable question of free will. Does it exist? Or, to couch the question in an era in which astrology was a "sister art" to astronomy, Can man defy the stars and direct his own destiny? PREDESTINATION is a heavy topic, but in this case it is leavened by Marsh's meticulous research into the strange lot of court dwarves, and the wonderful and outlandish world of one of history's more idiosyncratic geniuses, whose behavior provides virtually unlimited amusement Having lost his nose in a duel, Brahe (in fact as well as fiction) wears a prosthetic one, copper for everyday and silver on formal occasions. From his lowly vantage, it falls to Jepp to retrieve the nose when it inevitably slips off the astrologer's face, whether from exertion or intoxication. As Jepp comes of age he also comes to believe what all good novelists know: Fate is character, and character cannot be forged by the placement of stars in the firmament. The questions that torment Marsh's diminutive hero are not much different from those we try to answer in the present day. Are we our DNA or the sum of our experiences? Is each person's identity the result of a mysterious interplay between what nature gives him and nurture either awakens or smothers? "It is our misfortunes and our mistakes that are our true parents," Jepp decides. Like all humans, he can be passively buffeted by circumstance or he can apply his will to working with what life has given him. Jepp does, as the title of Marsh's novel announces, defy what another less gifted and determined young man might accept as fate, just as Marsh transcends genre to create an engaging narrative complex enough to keep not-so-young adults turning its pages. After a series of misadventures, he even gets the full-size girl of his dreams, one whose kindness reveals Jepp to himself as "a centaur by moonlight" a powerful and virile figure, formed differently from others, perhaps, but possessing chivalry, intelligence and grace nonetheless. Is identity the result of interplay between what nature gives and nurture either awakens or smothers? Kathryn Harrison is writing a biography of Joan of Arc. Her most recent book is "Enchantments," a novel
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Is our fate predetermined, or do we make our own fortune (or misfortune) through our actions and decisions? Marsh ponders this age-old question through the eyes of an extraordinary hero. When Jepp, a fatherless dwarf, joins the court of the Spanish Infanta, he's not prepared for the daily humiliations that become his life. He also doesn't expect to fall in love with a fellow performer, melancholy but lovely Lia. When she is raped, Jepp attempts to help her and her unborn child escape-with tragic results. As punishment for his insubordination, Jepp becomes dinnertime entertainment for the eccentric Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Inspired by friendship with Brahe's daughter, Magdalene, Jepp reveals his educated mind and is welcomed into the astronomer's close-knit circle of scholars. He even finds true love. But before Jepp can embrace this promising new future, he must embark on a journey of self-discovery to resolve his past. Marsh crafts a beautifully poignant coming-of-age tale of struggle, tragedy, and, finally, of triumph. Jepp's indomitable spirit is truly inspiring, and it is this rare quality that makes his character so memorable. The universal moral of self-acceptance is communicated skillfully. This shining gem is a must-have.-Alissa J. Bach, Oxford Public Library, MI (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Part coming-of-age novel and part paternity quest, this late-16th-century tale earns its distinction by virtue of its narrator: a dwarf. Edgar Awardwinning author Marsh (The Twilight Prisoner, 2009, etc.) has written a fast-paced adventure, abundant with period details, that comprises about two years of the diminutive Jepp's life. Jepp's account begins at a perilous point in his story--"imprisoned in [a] star-crossed coach, bumping up and down bone-rattling roads"--which leads to an exposition of the events that have brought him to this fate. Eventually his tale moves to a time beyond the hazardous coach journey and on to a satisfying, if overly contrived, ending. The book has three parts, loosely linked to three crucial northern European settings: the rural inn where Jepp was raised by a loving mother; the kingdom of Coudenberg, where he endures the luxurious but humiliating life of a court dwarf and is involved in a horrible tragedy; and the palace of Uraniborg, renowned for astronomical research, where Jepp's status rises almost miraculously from pet dog to that of a respected scholar as well as a favored suitor for his beloved. Despite the fact that the third part of the book pales in comparison to the first two, the honest and humorously self-deprecating voice of Jepp moves readers to rejoice with him as he seeks and manipulates his destiny. (Historical fiction. 12-18)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Our coach proceeded along a cobblestone promenade to the side of the palace and then stopped. Don sprang out, as jaunty as a grasshopper, and lifted me down after him. My legs felt stiff and my nose cold, but it hardly mattered. In front of us was a small, arched door. I peered up at Don eagerly, awaiting his instruction. "Go ahead, Jepp," he said. "Open it."For the first time in my life, I did not have to reach up for the handle. I pushed open the little door and stepped into a white marble hall illuminated by a pair of elegant brass candelabra. Don followed me inside, hunching beneath the doorframe, and when he straightened up, I noticed that the top of his head nearly brushed the ceiling. At the end of the hall was a staircase. Voices drifted down it.Don gestured for me to follow him along the hall and up the stairs. It was the first time I had climbed so steep and winding a staircase. Halfway up, my head began to spin and I made the error of gazing back down. I ceased my climb and leaned against the wall, watching Don take the stairs ahead of me three and four at a time. It occurred to me that, like the little door and low-ceilinged hall, they too had been fashioned for a smaller-than-normal inhabitant. "Come along," said Don from the top of the staircase, mistaking my inexperience with heights for hesitation.I steeled myself and continued to climb until I had reached his same eyrie platform. We passed through another small door and into a second hall. The voices were louder here. They beckoned from an illuminated chamber to our right. Don bent beneath the low doorframe to enter the chamber and I followed after.I will never forget the sight that greeted me... Excerpted from Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
