Book Review: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

Just finished reading Splendors and Glooms. It was the Newbery Medal winner this year. She also wrote Good Masters! Sweet Ladies, also a Newbery Medal winning fiction picture book. (BTW... I went to another library and because my zip code sits on the boarder with another city, the second library let me borrow the books because I lied and said I lived in the other city.)

I thought it was an endearing story and provided a satisfying ending for any middle grade reader. I especially loved  Parsefall and the colloquial pauper ole' English he spoke.

Also, another heavy dialogue character in the book's villain, Grisini, who speaks words and sentences in Italian. It bothered me tremendously that the author never explained what the character had said.

The author's use of language was fabulous. For example, "Except for his industry, he had few good qualities." or "Only the wind pursued them."

The book reminded me of The Underneath because its fairy tale like quality and it's told in omnipresent. I liked it much more than The Underneath, but I don't think it's exactly MG because it is quite scary--although that can be said about the latter Harry Potter books which children devoured.  The story line had no love interest or older humor and wouldn't exactly fit in the YA market, either. Although the book was wonderful, it is more for adults with children as the main characters. It is a plot driven book with endearing characters, but no real theme, unless I want to force the "there's no place like home" mantra at the end.

I like it enough to recommend it, and listing to the recording on Audible, it sounds like it is a brilliant audio book, which I plan to download it for my daughter.