The Book of Pearl

January 1, 2018

Gr 5 Up-In this stirring French fantasy, a Pearl is far more than a precious gem. A Pearl is a member of the talented Jewish family who has a gift for producing magnificent artisanal marshmallows in their charming patisserie. During a rainstorm, Monsieur Jacques Pearl rescues and adopts a boy he spies standing frightened and alone in the downpour. It quickly becomes clear that the boy is not of this world; he is from a world of fairy tales, complete with enchanting fay, usurped kings, and dastardly assassins who are on the hunt for the disappeared prince. Chapters set in this fantasy world are interspersed among those that take place in France before, during, and after World War II. Although de Fombelle excels in his romantic and ornate descriptions of the different worlds and characters, readers might find it difficult to follow the disparate narratives. This is not helped by the narrator, a seemingly random character who literally stumbles into the story. Frustratingly, his significance and contribution to the main story remains purposefully muddled for much of the book. However, at its heart, this is a fascinating and epic tale of forbidden love that spans years and universes. The events of World War II make a surprisingly accurate parallel for lost and broken children looking for remnants of their former lives, while elements of the impossible love story resound beautifully throughout. VERDICT Fans of Inkheart and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will enjoy this fantastical and romantic book, while the sophisticated language, literary devices, and historical background may make this a fine option for a class book study.-Maria Alegre, The Dalton School, New York City

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2017
Exiled from the "land of fairy tales," a melancholy youth seeks to find his way back. In this richly textured, multilayered story, a prince named Ilian and a fairy named Olia fall in love in the Kingdoms. Olia renounces her magical powers to be with Ilian, but a malevolent genie banishes them with the condition Olia never allow Ilian to see her. Arriving in Paris in 1936, Ilian remembers nothing. Sheltered by the proprietors of the Maison Pearl, Ilian's an amiable, mysterious youth plagued by "frenzies." A book of fairy tales unlocks his memories, triggering Ilian's quest to return to the Kingdoms and to Olia; he's unaware she's secretly with him. Enlisting in the war, Ilian is captured by the Nazis and then escapes from a German prison camp, fights in the Resistance, and continues his quest, eventually retiring in seclusion with his collection of fairy-tale "tokens of proof." When a boy with a camera invades Ilian's privacy, Ilian sends him away, but 25 years later, the boy, now an adult writer, becomes the teller of this tale. Alternating storylines and narrators challenge and beguile, eventually merging into a masterfully interconnected tale in which compelling themes of revenge, love, and devotion transcend both the fairy world's fantasy and the realism of wartime Paris. A luminous, haunting, intriguingly intricate modern fairy tale. (Fantasy. 12-18)

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Starred review from December 1, 2017
Grades 8-11 *Starred Review* Once upon a time, there was an epic love story that took place in two worlds. One world was that of stories, in which a young prince named Ilian could fall in love with a beautiful girl, Olia, who was a fairy. Alas, it seemed they were not to live happily ever after, for Ilian's older brother was an evil king counseled by a genie who banished the prince to a second world, our world, the one we call real. Unknown to Ilian, Olia was also banished to the real world but with a curse: if Ilian ever sees her, she will vanish forever. In the meantime, a second young man sees Olia and also falls in love with her, becoming part of her and Ilian's lives and growing up to chronicle the story of their incandescent love. French author de Fombelle, the actual chronicler, has created a hauntingly beautiful story that has the weight and imagination of classic fairy tales by the likes of Grimm and Perrault. Can curses be broken? Can lovers be reunited and return to their home world? Or are they doomed to remain in one where they will always be separated? The answers are slowly and tantalizing revealed in beautifully artful ways, proving that ours, too, can be a world of unforgettable stories.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2018
A boy stumbles upon a forest house filled with suitcases. What he learns about their owner brings together the politics of a fairy-tale kingdom, the love between a fairy and a banished prince, and the fate of an adopted son of Parisian marshmallow makers. Stuffed with Old-World, otherworldly strangeness, this fantastical novel movingly explores memory and the power of story to render love immortal.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

March 1, 2018
Fairy tale, mystery, adventure, fable, and love story?de Fombelle's fantastical novel is all of these. Blundering through the forest, a boy stumbles upon a house filled with hundreds of suitcases. Who was their owner and how did he or she come to be there? What the boy learns, narrated in retrospect when he's forty years old, brings together the politics of a fairy-tale kingdom, the love between a fairy and a banished prince, and the fate of an adopted son of Parisian marshmallow makers. De Fombelle's story is stuffed with Old-World, otherworldly strangeness, and its hero, Joshua Pearl, rivals the hero of the author's earlier Vango (rev. 9/14) in elusiveness and romance. He already knew he would spend his whole life leaving, the narrator tells us, and Pearl's service in World War II and the French Resistance are but small chapters in his urgent, peripatetic quest for love and memory. De Fombelle's short, abrupt sentences; his vivid combination of settings (from 1940s to current-day France, from the stark fairy kingdom to a decayed Venetian palace); even the namelessness of the narrator make this an irresistible labyrinth of a tale. Most deeply and movingly, the author explores memory, nostalgia, and the power of story to render love immortal. Life?follows the imagination with fierce loyalty, Pearl is told; the story sets out to prove it. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)