Short and sweet - an urban fairytale targeted at children that should be reviewed in the spirit it was written and not by grown-up standards. 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.

I do, I’m afraid, understand books far more readily than I understand people. Books are so easy to get along with.” The baby was found wrapped for warmth in the musical score of a Beethoven symphony. It had drifted almost a mile from the ship, and was the last to be rescued. The man who lifted it into the rescue boat was a fellow passenger, and a scholar. It is a scholar’s job to notice things. He noticed that it was a girl, with hair the color of lightning, and the smile of a shy person. 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.

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Book Genre: Adventure, Childrens, Cultural, Fantasy, Fiction, France, Historical, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Mystery, Young Adult

It’s a mystery that drives the story, but the characters of the determined Sophie and bookish Charles are easy to love, which really makes the story as good as it is. The idea of “rooftoppers”, the people who live on roofs, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, is interesting, and it’s fun to follow Sophie as she becomes tangled up with the rooftoppers. I meant, she knows the things which are important. Not all of them, of course; she is still a child. But many." 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… Sophie, whose only possession is the cello box she was found drifting in, lives for 12 happy years in Charles' household, homeschooled in the most unconventional ways, allowed to ask any question she likes, read whatever she takes a fancy to and climb any tree or rooftop in sight. Their iddylic existence is put in danger when social services decide this is no way to raise a proper lady. Let me just talk about my love for the characters. Sophie and Charles were impossible not to grow fond of. When Sophie was a baby Charles found her floating on the English Channel in a cello case and took her in to raise her in his humble, book-filled apartment.It wasn’t compulsory to send girls to primary school until 1883, so many girls weren’t taught to read and write beyond what they needed to know at home. This would be a beautiful gift for a mother to give to her young daughter, but it goes deeper and is so much more than that, unwritten, unspoken, unbroken bond. It is about the power of love, in all its many forms, all of them fierce and loyal. Hopeful, inspiring and thrilling in equal measure, this is a classic adventure story about pursuing your dreams and never ignoring a possible.

karen pretty much nailed it when she said this was "classic-feeling". This whimsical historical tale has something timeless and wonderful about it - like all the best children's classics. The characters are so well-drawn and memorable, and the writing sparkles with a certain bittersweetness. By far the best part of this book is Sophie’s relationship with her foster father, Charles. Charles always encouraged Sophie’s peculiarities and never tried to fit her into a mould. His only method of upbringing was to love Sophie as much as possible – everything else was to work itself out. Parents can learn a lot from Charles; oftentimes we try too hard and focus on all the wrong things, and in the process, we neglect what’s most important. Sophie ate from book covers because she tended to break plates; she never brushed her hair, allowing it to become a tangled mess; she wore trousers sewn by Charles when girls were expected to wear pretty dresses, and she was homeschooled, mostly on Shakespeare. But she was the happiest child, free to become the person she was meant to.

On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel. Mother: Great story with spoonfuls of creamy dream-like prose. Loved most young Sophie and her adventures with the rag-tag friends who dwell on rooftops and trees, especially Matteo and the almost more-than-friendship introduced by Rundell...reminiscent of Secret Garden with maybe a dash of Heathcliff in hardscrabble Matteo, the lone wolf kid all haunted, passionate, and grim. (Jump, Sophie, jump. You might die, but maybe you won't. And here, here are my scars from the knife and no, I don't talk about it, like ever, but it messed me up. And yes, give me your ankles to hold and I'll dangle you over the edges of reason and rooftops.)