| Booktalk
#1
Gemma longs to go to school
in London. She is tired of living in India and can't understand why
her mother won't let her go to boarding school. But then the unthinkable
happens. Her mother commits suicide and Gemma finds herself tucked
in at Spence's boarding school. Here she learns what life has to
offer for young girls in a Victorian society. The girls are expected
to learn to be good wives and abandon their own ambitions to support their
husbands. Girls from lesser society are trained as governesses.
Here, Gemma also learns the frightening truth about her mother's death
and the age-old Order of sorceresses.
Booktalk #2
In
1895 after her mother’s mysterious death in India, sixteen-year-old Gemma
Doyle is shipped off to an English boarding school whose mission is to
prepare girls for marriage to wealthy men. At first, she is picked on by
a group of catty girls, but Gemma possesses magical powers that enable
her to turn the tables on them. Soon, a select group of four begins to
leave school in the middle of the night for a cave off-campus where the
girls enter into another dimension and where their most fervent wishes
are granted. Tragedy results from their dalliance into forbidden territory
and lives are changed forever. (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania
Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2005-2006) |
