Corey Ann Haydu’s Rules for Stealing Stars Sheds Light and Magic In Darkness:
Closets can hold onto the things we fear, like monsters in the dark. We can build them around us to keep our secrets. Or we can open them, in a Narnia-like fashion, to discover a magical world. In Corey Ann Haydu’s Rules for Stealing Stars, closets are all of these things; a haven for all the beautiful and terrible things we tend to hide.
The novel tells the story of four sisters; the confident and bossy rule-maker, Eleanor; her twin, the free-spirited Astrid; the brooding and odd Marla; and, our narrator, Priscilla. Nicknamed “Silly” by her sisters, she’s the baby of the family. Always left out and treated like a “half-person”, she’s the one they don’t take seriously; the little girl they have to protect and coddle.
Rules for Stealing Stars
Hardcover $16.99
Rules for Stealing Stars
Hardcover $16.99
The girls live in a home of secrets and fear. Tiptoeing around their mother’s unpredictable moods, they exchange silent nods and keep quiet if it means it will keep the peace. While Eleanor escapes to meet a “secret boyfriend” and Astrid gets lost in the obsessive art of diorama-making, Silly looks for a teammate in their tenuous sisterhood, finding it, sometimes, in Marla, the one sister she does not understand.
When her three older sisters reluctantly let her into a secret closet in the twins’ bedroom, Silly finds the safety and stability she’s been looking for. There she discovers the magic of her family’s life, and a spark inside her she never knew she had. Entering the closets in their home becomes a unique escape for each sister, and lets each hold onto the promise of a stronger bond. But as the girls make assumptions and assign rules to the experience, the possibility of escape and its dangerous consequences threaten to tear them apart.
Rules for Stealing Stars explores both sides of a difficult childhood. It faces hard moments head on, dealing honestly, but sensitively, with alcoholism and neglect. Then it runs wild with magic, the business of stars, the enchantment of fairytales; softening and re-shaping the harsh realities of the sisters’ lives.
This skillful ability to shed light in the darkness is what gives this novel its depth. Haydu hands over the magic her characters need and, in doing so, gives her readers the power to hope with them and for them. Like so many of us, these sisters don’t always know what to do when they are given the choice to either ignore or face their problems. They are as flawed and beautiful as their mother, who cannot provide for them because she’s found her own magical elixir of escape. But they also have one another, a force more powerful than the thorny promise of magic.
A powerful novel that will appeal to young readers as well as adults, Rules for Stealing Stars, is an honest, hopeful, and beautiful exploration of the magic we can find in our darkest moments. The story and its characters shine. After turning the last page, you’ll feel like you’ve been let into a wonderful secret you can’t possibly keep.
Rules for Stealing Stars is on shelves September 29.
The girls live in a home of secrets and fear. Tiptoeing around their mother’s unpredictable moods, they exchange silent nods and keep quiet if it means it will keep the peace. While Eleanor escapes to meet a “secret boyfriend” and Astrid gets lost in the obsessive art of diorama-making, Silly looks for a teammate in their tenuous sisterhood, finding it, sometimes, in Marla, the one sister she does not understand.
When her three older sisters reluctantly let her into a secret closet in the twins’ bedroom, Silly finds the safety and stability she’s been looking for. There she discovers the magic of her family’s life, and a spark inside her she never knew she had. Entering the closets in their home becomes a unique escape for each sister, and lets each hold onto the promise of a stronger bond. But as the girls make assumptions and assign rules to the experience, the possibility of escape and its dangerous consequences threaten to tear them apart.
Rules for Stealing Stars explores both sides of a difficult childhood. It faces hard moments head on, dealing honestly, but sensitively, with alcoholism and neglect. Then it runs wild with magic, the business of stars, the enchantment of fairytales; softening and re-shaping the harsh realities of the sisters’ lives.
This skillful ability to shed light in the darkness is what gives this novel its depth. Haydu hands over the magic her characters need and, in doing so, gives her readers the power to hope with them and for them. Like so many of us, these sisters don’t always know what to do when they are given the choice to either ignore or face their problems. They are as flawed and beautiful as their mother, who cannot provide for them because she’s found her own magical elixir of escape. But they also have one another, a force more powerful than the thorny promise of magic.
A powerful novel that will appeal to young readers as well as adults, Rules for Stealing Stars, is an honest, hopeful, and beautiful exploration of the magic we can find in our darkest moments. The story and its characters shine. After turning the last page, you’ll feel like you’ve been let into a wonderful secret you can’t possibly keep.
Rules for Stealing Stars is on shelves September 29.