The Cabinet of Wonders

Starred review from August 18, 2008
Add this heady mix of history and enchantment to the season's list of astonishingly accomplished first novels: in Rutkowski's multilayered version of late–16th-century Bohemia, magicians coexist with peasants and courtiers, a tribe of gypsies use specially endowed “ghost” fingers, and the fate of Europe hangs on the schemes of an evil prince. As the novel opens, a metalworker with extraordinary gifts has returned from Prince Rodolfo's palace in Prague, having finished his commission to build a magical clock—but the prince has gouged out his eyes, so that he can never duplicate the clock or, worse, better it. Even more disturbingly, the prince wears the eyes himself. Vowing to recover her father's eyes, 12-year-old Petra sneaks off to Prague, with little more than the company of Astrophil, an erudite tin spider who can communicate with her. Proving herself a worthy relative of, say, Philip Pullman's quick-thinking, fearless heroines, Petra navigates her way past sorceress countesses, English spy magicians, dangerous gypsies and through bewitched palace halls until Rodolfo, wearing the ill-gotten eyes, catches sight of her. Infusions of folklore (and Rutkowski's embellishments of them) don't slow the fast plot but more deeply entrance readers. Ages 10–up.

May 1, 2009
Gr 5 Up-Set in 16th-century Bohemia, Petra's father, who was commissioned to build a clock for Prince Rodolfo, returns home blind. The prince gouged out his eyes so that the metalworker would never be able to create a more beautiful clock. Determined to retrieve her inventor father's eyes, the 12-year-old girl travels to Prague with Astrophil, a tin spider created by her father, to locate them. Marie Rutkoski's fantasy (Farrar Straus, 2008) is narrated by Lorelei King who gives distinct and appropriate voices to all the characters. However, while the text states that the people in Prague sound quite different, this is not reflected in the reading. Also, King sometimes replaces "want to" and "going to" with "wanna" and "gonna." Although Rutkowski takes some pains to introduce Roma (Gypsy) culture to readers, it is shocking that she perpetuates the negative stereotype of Gypsies as a culture of liars and thieves, an image Carla Stevens decried in a 1974 article, "The Image of Gypsies in Children's Literature" (Interracial Books for Children, Vol. 5), and the kind of negative stereotype that would not be acceptable about any other minority group today. Although the story is exciting and involving, this audiobook cannot be recommended for that reason."Louise L. Sherman, formerly at Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ"

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