The Girl in the Tower

Muy linda tapa pero adentro es papel corriente con unas pocas ilustraciones en blanco y negro. Esperaba otro tipo de libro, de mejor calidad y con ilustraciones en color.

My daughter loved it!! Great story line !

This story begins in a kingdom controlled by the evil Queen Bogdana. She is a witch who has cast a spell over everyone. She can have everything she wants except beauty. The spell to become beautiful requires two very special ingredients - a feather from a living hummingbird and a long hair from a dark-haired girl with lavender eyes between the ages of eleven and twelve.The queen goes to great trouble and expense to import hummingbirds to live in her garden. She also imprisons a traveling minstrel and her newborn daughter in a tower when the child is born with lavender eyes. This is the story of that girl - Violet - and her mother who have lived imprisoned in the tower for almost eleven years.Her mother Nuri has tried to make the tower a bearable experience for Violet but encouraging her imagination and telling her stories. Nuri also tells her stories about her father who is also a traveling musician and who is surely searching for the two of them. Violet has grown to be both brave and kind. Nuri has been assisted by a palace maid named Maggie and her husband George who is a gardener. He has made a secret garden for Violet where she has been befriended by the queen's hummingbirds.This is the story of what happens when the queen discovers Violet, decides to turn her into a princess, and banishes Nuri from the castle. This was a sweet story suitable for elementary students. Its message is that love and kindness is the true beauty. This would make a good first long chapter book for second and third graders who love stories that are like fairy tales.