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Summary
Summary
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver comes a luminous novel that glows with rare magic, ghostly wonders, and a true friendship that lights even the darkest of places. An E. B. White Read-Aloud Honor Book, it's perfect for fans of the author's other middle grade novels: The Spindlers and the Curiosity House series.
Liesl lives in a tiny attic bedroom, locked away by her cruel stepmother. Her only friends are the shadows and the mice--until one night a ghost named Po appears from the darkness.
That same evening, an alchemist's apprentice named Will makes an innocent mistake that has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po, and it draws the three of them together on an extraordinary journey.
Author Notes
Lauren Oliver (born Laura Schechter) was born in New York City in 1982. She received degrees in philosophy and literature from the University of Chicago in 2004. She graduated the MFA program at NYU in 2008. She worked briefly as an editorial assistant and an assistant editor at Razorbill, a division of Penguin Books. She left to become a full-time writer in 2009. Her first novel, Before I Fall, was published in 2010. Her other works include Delirium, Liesl and Po, and Pandemonium. Her title's Panic, Vanishing Girls and The Shrunken Head made The New York Times Best Seller List. She made the Hollywood Reporter's '25 Most Powerful Authors' 2016 list, entering at number 23.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This fairy tale centers on two children: Liesl, whose father died and who has been locked in the attic by her wicked stepmother, and Will, an orphan who works all day and night for a cruel wizard. A friendly ghost named Po befriends Liesl and helps her escape, while Will is forced to run away after accidentally giving a powerful magic potion to the wrong person. As they are escaping, Liesl and Po cross paths with Will, and they decide to join forces. Award-winning narrator Jim Dale brings his own brand of magic to the tale, narrating in the tones of an elderly and wise storyteller, while creating distinctive and memorable voices for the characters, including down-to-earth Liesl, the weaselly wizard, the icy Lady Premiere, the monstrous stepmother, and gentle Mo, a dimwitted but kindhearted guard who helps the children. This is an excellent audiobook for youngsters, whether they're in riding in the car, reluctant readers, or fantasy lovers. Ages 8-12. A HarperCollins hardcover. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Liesl, locked away by an evil stepmother, befriends Po, a ghost who helps her escape to put her father's ashes to rest. She crosses paths with an alchemist's apprentice, and the two flee pursued by adults hungry for magic and power. Appropriately shadowy black-and-white illustrations accompany the suspenseful tale. Copyright 2010 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In this charming, insightful fantasy, Oliver's first for middle grades, characters converge thanks to an accidental mix-up between boxes, one holding an evil alchemist's greatest spel. The Most Powerful Magic in the Worl. and one holding the ashes of a little girl's beloved father. Locked in the attic by her greedy stepmother, Liesl desperately mourns her father's death, but she has reason to hope when two ghosts, Po and Bundle, visit from the Other Side. After they deliver a message from her father, who wishes Liesl to bury him under the willow tree where her mother rests, they steal the box containing his ashes. On their journey, they meet Will, the alchemist's ill-used apprentice, who has been on the run ever since he misplaced the alchemist's spell, which could raise the dead and restore youth. This original fairy tale, told by a wise and humorous omniscient narrator and peopled with broadly drawn but instantly recognizable characters, avoids sentimentality to show the magic of accepting loss without letting go and finding joy in the lives left behind. Final illustrations not seen.--Hutley, Krist. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
TEACHERS and librarians are always searching for an ideal read-aloud: a book with a strong narrative voice, rich language and short episodic chapters that appeals to a range of ages. The very best read-alouds manage to get listeners, young or old, emotionally invested in the story - without, however, inducing them to fits of sobbing along the way. "Liesl and Po," the first foray into middle-grade fiction by Lauren Oliver, author of wildly popular books for young adults, like "Delirium," is such a story: crowded with distinctive characters and a twisty-turny plot, and rife with words like "ineffable" as well as expletives like "scrat," making it all the more fun to read aloud. And so, once upon a time, to a cold, gray, vaguely European city where there lived a little girl named Liesl, whose doting father has recently died. Liesl's nefarious stepmother, Augusta, with designs on Liesl's inheritance, imprisons the poor child in the attic. A classic opening. Then, into the attic comes a ghost, Po, who has been pulled from the "other side." Though it took a little while, I warmed up to Po, neither male nor female, and to Po's comforting ghost-pet, Bundle, neither dog nor cat but a creature who expresses itself with a punctuating "mwark." A not-so-funny comedy of errors occurs when Will, the alchemist's abused apprentice, about to make a delivery of a wooden box to the powerful Lady Premiere, is warned by his evil master: "Do not stop for anyone. Hurry right there, and give this to her. Do not let anyone else see or touch it. You are carrying great magic with you! Huge magic! The biggest I have ever made. The biggest that I have ever attempted." Unfortunately, the sleep-deprived apprentice swaps it with a similar box containing cremated remains. As the narrator proclaims: "Coincidences; mix-ups; harmless mistakes and switches. And so a story is born." Grown-ups will catch echoes of Dickens in the orphaned runaways and despicable adults who pursue them. Most of the adult characters are vengefully amoral, but there is hope and heart in Mo, a gentle giant. To this, Oliver adds details that are Roald Dahlish in their delightful gruesomeness. Will's chores, for example, include waking at 6 a.m. to feed "enormous, slimy, bleary-eyed catfish," "grinding up cow eyes, and measuring the blood of lizards into different-sized vials." "Liesl and Po" is a crazy quilt of genres. Although it is obviously a ghost story, there are strong allusions to classic children's literature like "A Little Princess." There's a touch of a quest tale as our heroes bravely journey to Uesl's childhood home to lay her father's ashes to rest. Elements of the traditional fairy tale peek through as well: a land cursed in darkness, betrayal upon betrayal, those satisfying coincidences and heroic nick-of-time escapes. And a hint of mythology emerges from the world beyond, where Po and Liesl's father meet. Oliver's adroit use of descriptive language permeates the narration. Mr. Gray, we discover, feels that "all children were the same to him: strange and sticky and best avoided, like an upright variety of jellyfish." And all along, a consistent undercurrent of safety in the narration reassures young readers as wildly scary events are presented with dark humor. Kei Acedera's images, which appear throughout as full-page, half-page and spot-art ink-wash drawings, seem to be illuminated by dramatic light sources, from a roaring fire to a flickering candle, visually expressing the gloom settled on a land that has not seen the sun in 1,728 days. We see all this from an unusual vantage point, as if we are spying on the action from afar. Only the exaggerated cartoonish features of the dramatis personae lighten the otherwise somber mood. But it is a mood to be relished. It is easy to imagine & family on a cool autumn evening as the shadows fall across the walls, a knitted throw draped over their shoulders while an 8- and a 10-year-old listen, their heads tilting toward the grown-up reader so as not to miss a single word. Lisa Von Drasek is the children's librarian at the Bank Street College of Education. She blogs at EarlyWord.com.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Liesl's father has died, and she has been locked in an attic by her cruel stepmother. To the attic comes Po, a ghost whose memory of whether it was a boy or a girl has faded in its time in the world beyond. Po meets Liesl's father on the Other Side and carries a message back: he would like his ashes to be buried next to his first wife so that he can move on. In the same town on one fateful night, the apothecary's apprentice, Will, has two errands. The first is to deliver a box containing magic that the apothecary has conjured at the commission of the powerful the Lady Premiere, magic the apothecary claims will bring the dead back to life. The second is to stop by the undertaker's for some magical ingredients. Unwittingly, Will swaps the box of magic with the one containing the ashes of Liesl's father. When the mix-up is discovered, he flees the wrath of the apothecary and the Lady Premiere. Meanwhile, with Po's help, Liesl finds an opportunity to escape the attic and her stepmother. Their paths and destinies converge in an entirely satisfying way, and the plot gains forward momentum through chance encounters and lives crossing paths. This fantasy is written with the gentle simplicity of a fable infused with a storyteller's wisdom. Acedera's black-and-white charcoal illustrations are soft, warm, and somewhat old-fashioned, adding a great deal to the charm and emotion of the story. This is a case in which the illustrations truly enhance the book and make it something more special than it otherwise would have been. A lovely tale.-Tim Wadham, Children's Literature Consultant, Fenton, MO (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A wonderfully imaginative, startlingly moving and at times wickedly funny fantasy.In her first work for middle-grade readers, the versatile Oliver (Before I Fall, 2010, and Delirium, 2011) deftly creates two worlds that run parallel, "like two mirrors sitting face-to-face." On the "Living Side," the sun hasn'tcome out in 1,728 days, and Liesl (about 11) has been locked in a small attic bedroom for 13 months by her conniving stepmother, Augusta. Three nights after her beloved father dies, she is visited by a child-sized ghost named Po and Bundle, a ghost-pet, both of whom come from the "Other Side," where dead souls in various stages of "becoming part of the Everything" linger till they can go "Beyond." They become unlikely best friends, and Po helps Liesl escape so she can take her father's ashes home. Meanwhile... an egomaniacal alchemist whose specialty is potions and transfigurations has created "The Most Powerful Magic in the World" for the Very Important Lady Premiere. "The dead will rise / From glade to glen / And ancient will be young again." But the alchemist's mistreated apprentice Will, an orphan, mixes up the delivery and.... By alternating quietly lyrical, philosophical passages with laugh-out-loud broad comedy/farce, the author takes her readers on a fantastic voyage from loss to healing and joy. With nods to Dahl, Dickens, the Grimms and even Burnett, the author has made something truly original. Acedera's frequent black-and-white illustrations are a perfect complement.An irresistible read: This book sings. (Fantasy. 8-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
