The Maestro

by Tim Wynne-Jones

Overview

Burl Crow hasn't had many breaks in his young life. His father is a manipulative lout with a dangerous temper; his mother, worn down by years of abuse, now resorts to her little helpers to get her through the days. Then he meets Nathaniel Orlando Gow, the Maestro, and in just one day, this eccentric genius changes Burl's life forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780888996374
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	12/16/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	796,690
Product dimensions:	4.35(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.45(d)
Lexile:	700L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

TIM WYNNE-JONES is one of Canada's foremost writers for children. The author of over thirty-five books, he is a two-time winner of the Governor General's Award, as well as a two-time winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and of the Arthur Ellis Award. His short-story collections include Some of the Kinder Planets, Book of Changes and Lord of the Fries. He is also known for his Rex Zero series. Recently, he wrote the young-adult novels The Ruinous Sweep; Emperor of Any Place, which earned seven starred reviews; and Blink & Caution, which won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Tim is also the recipient of the Edgar Award and the Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. In 2012, he was made an Officer to the Order of Canada. He lives in Perth, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

(as The Survival Game) Wynne-Jones paints a powerful picture of the effects of abuse...One of the most delightful aspects of this compelling story is Wynne-Jones's sharp perspicacity and language...An intensely enjoyable read for 12+.

Inis Magazine (Ireland)

(as The Survival Game)...marvelously tense...It's a remarkable book.

Books for Keeps (UK)

...a gift for a group of readers not often enough offered work of this caliber.

Globe and Mail

The wilderness of northwest Ontario is a fitting setting for this tantalizing coming-of-age story about an abused boy, Burl, whose pervasive sense of isolation is cracked by an encounter with a famous pianist. When Burl runs away from home, he follows the sound of piano music and finds its source in an unlikely, pyramid-like cabin. There, the Maestro, as Burl is instructed to call him, having fled busy Toronto and the demands of his public, is trying to finish writing his great oratorio before he dies. When the quirky Maestro leaves Burl in charge of the cabin and his grand piano, Burl thinks he's found a haven-but it's not long before events hurl the teen into a web of other people's plans and back to his own family trauma. Wynne-Jones's (Some of the Kinder Planets) builds strong, multidimensional characters; Burl's father Cal both teaches his son about fishing lures and punches him in the face; Burl triumphantly dreams of living alone but is desolate that his parents never bothered to report him missing; the Maestro loves nature but fears wildlife. Complex and poignant, wrapped around a dramatic story line, this book won Canada's Governor General's Award for Children's Literature in 1995. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 6-9After observing his violent, abusive father's rendezvous with a waitress, Burl Crow runs away. He heads into the Canadian wilderness and discovers the retreat of Nathaniel Orlando Gow, an eccentric, world-renowned pianist. During their brief encounter, they become friends and Gow tells the boy about the oratorio he is composing. The man returns to Toronto and suddenly dies. After receiving the bad news from Bea, Gow's supply pilot, Burl begins living a lie of his own creationthat he is the Maestro's illegitimate son. Bea sends him to Toronto to make a claim for the lake and cabin, but instead he seeks out Gow's friend, who encourages him to rescue the oratorio. On his way back north, Burl is helped by a former teacher who offers him a home. He is trailed by his father who, in a drunken rage, sets the hideaway on fire. Everythingincluding Gow's piano and oratoriois destroyed and Burl, seeing his father engulfed in flames, saves him. Complicated? Yes, and not totally convincing. Wynne-Jones's writing is powerful in its description of individuals and situations, but does not probe either in much depth. Burl often seems naive and younger than his 14 years. His feelings for his father are not strongly portrayed, yet the novel hangs on actions that result from these feelings. Characters are drawn and then dropped, and their stories never lead anywhere except to move Burl toward a rather unrealistic ending. A complex novel that may not hold readers' interest.Wendy D. Caldiero, New York Public Library

School Library Journal

With a brutal, despicable father who beats him and an ineffectual mother incapacitated by drugs, Burl, 14, has learned not to expect anything good from life. After a crisis, he runs away into the wilderness near his small Canadian town, eventually stumbling upon an isolated house that is the secret refuge of a famous musician. Burt ingratiates himself, making himself useful while harboring the hope of staying on. But the boy's relationship with his reluctant savior is only the first in a series of encounters with those who want to use him, assist him, control him, or threaten him. Wynne-Jones (The Book of Changes, 1995, etc.) skillfully presents a complex character who, in order to survive, uses all his resources: knowledge of the woods; an instinctive understanding of the manipulations of adults; strategy; brutality, the legacy of his father; and compassion.

Lyrical writing combines with an unpredictable, unusual plot to convincingly test a teenager facing life-altering choices. A truly compelling adventure story.

Kirkus Reviews