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Summary
Summary
Once there was a Postman who fell in love with a Raven.
So begins the tale of a postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route and decides to bring her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child--an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body. The raven girl feels imprisoned by her arms and legs and covets wings and the ability to fly. Betwixt and between, she reluctantly grows into a young woman, until one day she meets an unorthodox doctor who is willing to change her.
One of the world's most beloved storytellers has crafted a dark fairy tale full of wonderment and longing. Complete with Audrey Niffenegger's bewitching etchings and paintings, Raven Girl explores the bounds of transformation and possibility.
Praise for Raven Girl :
"With her signature wit, wry melancholy, and keen gothic sensibility, Niffenegger weds the fabulous with the deeply human in this concentrated, suspenseful fable. . . ." --- Booklist, Starred Review
" The book is a colorist's dream that hauntingly captures the world of birds and humans and, as the title suggests, a creature that is somewhere in between." - The Chicago Sun-Times
"Niffenegger ( The Night Bookmobile ) blends art and prose in this eerie picture book for adults." -- Publishers Weekly
"Raven Girl is a delight to hold and take in. Lovers of fairy tales and some graphic novel fans should find much to love here."
-- School Library Journal online
"A haunting grown-up fairy tale" - Variety Magazine
"Provocative and beautiful." -- ForeWord Reviews
"A runaway hit? This one's going to fly." -- DailyCandy
"It's a lovely story." -- Chicago Reader
" Raven Girl is an insidious intermingling of words and pictures to be treasured."--Tor.com
Author Notes
Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963 in South Haven, Michigan) is an American writer and artist. She is also a professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.
Niffenegger's debut novel, The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), was a national bestseller. The Time Traveler's Wife is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent and unpredictable absences. The film version, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, is due for release in August 2009. Her latest fiction novel is entitled, Her Fearful Symmetry.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Niffenegger (The Night Bookmobile) blends art and prose in this eerie picture book for adults. The modern world takes on a fairy-tale cast as a postman falls in love with a raven; their daughter, stuck in a human body but able to speak only in the raven language, yearns to fly. As a college student, the raven girl learns of the possibility that she may surgically be given wings, thus transforming her body to better reflect her true nature. The tale takes a dark turn when a boy who harbors an unhealthy obsession for the raven girl-believing himself to be saving her-commits a murder. Niffenegger's images are not as polished as her prose; her humans have a slightly cartoonish feel, but her ravens are beautifully detailed, with feathers that seem as though they could fly off the page. The muted color choices suit the surreal tone of the novella. The unsettling nature of the tale is reminiscent of Swan Lake, and it is fitting that this story will also be debuting as a London Royal Ballet performance. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Following her eerie graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile (2010), multitalented Niffenegger returns to the elegant mode of her novels-in-pictures (The Three Incestuous Sisters, 2005; The Adventuress, 2006) in this by turns brooding and radiant modern fairy tale. A solitary postman serving a desolate outpost has nightmares about e-mail and fears he'll never have an adventure. Then one fateful day he delivers a letter to a raven's nest and finds a fledgling on the ground. He takes the little girl raven home; she matures quickly, relishing television and junk food, and they fall in love. Their egg-hatched daughter looks human, but she squawks instead of speaks, longs to fly, and confides, I feel all wrong. Away at college, she meets a plastic surgeon who thinks he can help. With her signature mordant wit, wry melancholy, and keen gothic sensibility, Niffenegger weds the fabulous with the deeply human in this concentrated, suspenseful fable of unlikely love, a struggle for selfhood, and a dramatic metamorphosis. Niffenegger's prose is precise and stinging, her etchings shadowed and graceful, her spellbinding story suffused with implications. Created in response to an invitation to collaborate with London's Royal Ballet, Raven Girl will take flight as a book and onstage.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist