Primavera

February 1, 2008
Gr 6-9-Left by her family to garden and help her Nonna in the kitchen, Flora Pazzi feels like a throwaway child. While the household flutters around her older, classically beautiful sister, Domenica, Flora is destined for, if not resigned to, a future in the convent. As Botticelli paints Domenica, Flora surreptitiously stows away flawed diamonds stolen from her father in a plot to escape her destiny. Yet as the political struggle between 15th-century Florence's power families, the Pazzis and the Medicis, climbs to a crescendo, Flora is forced to rethink her plans. Told from her perspective, the novel zooms in most closely on her personal adolescent turmoil as she is forced to look at herself and her family as outsiders might. Political, historical, and art historical details provide a canvas on which this tale of murder, intrigue, and young romance is played out, but are painted with a broad stroke. Beaufrand delicately weaves in the myth of Chloris, or Flora, the goddess of spring; Flora's troubles follow her just as Zephyr, the God of Wind, pursued her mythological namesake. "Primavera" will prove to be a welcome stepping stone for fans of Karen Cushman's middle-grade medieval fiction or art mysteries like Blue Balliett's "Chasing Vermeer" (Scholastic, 2004), and who are on the road to popular "painting novels" for adults, including Sarah Dunant's "The Birth of Venus" (Random, 2004) and Tracy Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Dutton, 2000)."Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2008
Floralabors undercover at a goldsmiths shop in Renaissance Florence.If her identity as a member of the Pazzi family were to bediscovered, she and her protectors would face brutal retribution from the Medicis, cruel autocrats of the Italian city-state. Hadnt Flora already witnessed the gruesome slaughter of most of her family when her father, leader of the Pazzi clan, challenged the Medicis in an attempted revolution? Beaufrand spares no details about greed-fueled violencein thishistorical novel, in whichthe plucky teen, guided by advice from her belovedgrandmother and the friendship of her soul mate, Emilio, escapes the fray as best she can while protecting surviving siblings. Along with the storys dramatic near escapes and perilous politics, Beaufrand interweaves rich details of Renaissance culture, especially throughFloras interactions with artist Sandro Botticelli (from whose real painting the novel takes its name).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)