Mostly, though, it made me think of A Little Princess, with a very different sense of social justice: no romanticizing of the diamond mines into something out of The Arabian Nights; no meek and grateful poor children, and no patient suffering. Sophie is a wonderful character, the rooftoppers she meets are heartbreaking and yet so strong, and I fell head over heels with Charles. It's whimsical and funny, too, which I don't think of A Little Princess as being, and yet ... that rooftop feast, for hungry Matteo (and Sophie, though hers was a voluntary hunger!), had the same emotional payoff as the one from the earlier book. sophie is our young heroine, charles the man who took her in as a baby when she was found in the water after the capsizing of a boat, and miss eliot the social worker who disapproves of the whole situation. here:

How CAWPILE didn't come out as five stars I don't know. This book isn't perfect but it's pretty damn close! The story ends abruptly with Sophie finding her mother, there was no mention of what would happen to Charles or the rooftoppers now. Sophie was the most charming, adorable, and spirited twelve-year-old and Charles was her eccentric and loving guardian who had an extremely odd but wonderful way of taking care of her. He filled her mind with the knowledge of words since she was young, let her wear pants, and encouraged her to play her cello on the rooftops.

The Explorer

Embrace possibility and let Sophie’s music take you to the rooftops of Paris. It is about hope and belief, about following your inner voice, listening to your senses and letting the music play on, play on, play on. All wrapped up in luscious, chocolaty prose. I loved the way this narrative ran, it was a classic survival-in-the-wild style story but then we are introduced to a mysterious man called 'The Explorer' (I must not have read the blurb because this aspect was a surprise to me!). I loved this element of the story especially since this figure felt sinister at first but his development revealed hidden depths and a heart-warming relationship with one of our protagonists. This might just be me, as I tend to have issues with most endings, but I was really unsatisfied with how this story wrapped up. Like, Sophie found her mom, but then it just ends? The rooftoppers storyline felt unresolved, as well as Charles’s. We never find out what happened with her mom, how she is still alive, if she gets to keep Sophie… The setting moves between the rooftops of London and Paris as our charming pair of criminals run from the authorities who wish to take Sophie away. Behind this, though, is the search for Sophie's mother and all they have to lead the way is the cello and it's music. Mustang Wanted, real name Pavlo Ushivets, a Ukrainian rooftopper who has performed climbs and stunts around the world. In August 2014, during the War in Donbass, he climbed the spire of Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building in Moscow, Russia and painted the yellow star on the top of the spire in blue to symbolize the colors of the Ukrainian flag. He was later prosecuted in absentia in Russia for vandalism, and also awarded in Ukraine. [11] [12] [13] [14]

When I was reading it and I was whisked away to Ms Rundell’s dreamlike Paris where the streets are still cobbled and the streetlights are being lit by hand, I couldn’t help but think of the film The Illusionist. Except Rooftoppers had a much happier and incredibly delightful ending. I meant, she knows the things which are important. Not all of them, of course; she is still a child. But many." The prose may seem at times a little condescending toward kids and preachy, but I must point out again that its intended audience is 10 years old kids, and not fifty-somethings. Adjectives like 'bouncy' , 'twirling', 'skipping'. 'dancing' and 'singing' are a good indicator for a happy story, yet the author is skillful enough to introduce in the text powerful critical comments about the way we treat orphans and the way we stifle imagination in young children. There were a few missteps that pulled me out of the story several times, but they all can be dismissed as grown-up foibles, so I decided to put them in spoilers, and not to detract from the overall positive impression this short story left.There is so much love for life, language and adventure in this book. It has you wishing you were the kind of person who could go racing around rooftops at midnight, seeing the whole of a beautiful European city laid out before you. Charles and Sophie go to the police station to find out if Vivienne was on the records of the sinking ship. The police refuse to let them see the ship’s records, which makes Charles and Sophie suspicious . I think kids might appreciate the use of language, whereas I found some of it a bit kitschy. There were descriptions and even minor plot elements that chose quirky aesthetic sweetness over actual usefulness. A Chelsea bun that tastes like blue skies? It's a lovely sentence, but I'm no closer to knowing what that bun tastes like. And having a suit where a heart should be? It's been done - in fact, I'm pretty sure Meg Ryan says something very similar in You've Got Mail. But for young readers/writers just learning to wrangle words into a particular voice, this kind of language can be engaging and open up new possibilities. Fred es un niño inglés, del que todo el mundo dice que es un niño tranquilo y sensato, pero que siempre ha soñado con ser explorador. Ahora tiene que demostrarse a si mismo si realmente tiene madera de explorador. Maxim and Sophie, threatened with immediate eviction to an orphanage, decide to run out of the country and head to Paris, chasing a wild dream of finding the girl's mother from a clue hidden in the cello box. Mother-hunting becomes the main interest for Sophie. Without impunding in any way her love for Charles, the girl is in need of "A place to put down her heart. A resting stop to recover her breath. A set of stars and maps." The Parisian authorities prove to be even more inflexible and corrupt than the London ones, and Sophie only finds help and understanding in a band of outlaws and orphans like herself - a group of lost children living like savages among the rooftops of the city. Thus is the rooftoppers club born, an a charming novel written.