The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson's hugely entertaining The Star of Kazan is a timeless classic for readers young and old. In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there, but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . . .
This year (thanks to a recommendation by Ella Risbridger on Instagram, of all places) I have binged on Eva Ibbotson, not her children’s books, but her elegantly written, witty and well-observed if (after a few) formulaic fables of emigrées with beautiful burnished hair fallen on hard timesI read one after another, and rather feel your Christmas might be brightened by doing the same. So may I suggest A Song for Summer, followed by The Morning Gift, then The Secret Countess, A Company of Swans, Magic Flutes, Journey to the River Sea, and The Star of Kazan. -- Nigella Lawson * The Sunday Times *
Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna in 1925 and moved to England with her father when the Nazis came to power. Ibbotson wrote more than twenty books for children and young adults, many of which garnered nominations for major awards for children's literature in the UK, including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the Whitbread Prize. Eva's critically acclaimed Journey to the River Sea won the Smarties Gold Medal in 2001. Set in the Amazon, it was written in honour of her deceased husband Alan, a former naturalist. Imaginative and humorous, Eva's books often convey her love of nature, in particular the Austrian countryside, which is evident in works such as The Star of Kazan and A Song for Summer. Eva passed away at her home in Newcastle on 20 October 2010.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781447265726 |
| ISBN 10 | 1447265726 |
| Title | The Star of Kazan |
| Author | Eva Ibbotson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Pan Macmillan |
| Year published | 2014-05-08 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Prizes | Winner of Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Silver Award 2004 (UK), Short-listed for The CILIP Carnegie Medal 2004 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |