Quaver’s Elly Robin series begins, once again, with a daring escape by heroine Elly—this time in a 1914 Curtiss Model F flying boat. After barely landing the craft in one piece, Elly’s banged up and left with a head injury, rescued by Magda and her brother Niklaus, members of a reclusive Amish community. She spends the next few weeks recuperating, until the police, who wrongly suspect her of murder, are once again on her tail, forcing her to flee. Niklaus, who believes in Elly’s innocence, along with itinerant fiddle player Paw-paw and grandson Davy, help her escape anew.Thanks to the help of her friends, Elly lands in New York City, determined to dig up information about her past—and search for her grandfather, Ira Rabinowitz. That doesn’t go as planned, of course, leaving Elly high and dry, with no one to turn to. As with the other books in the series, Quaver plunges readers directly into action in this sixth installment (after Bird in a Gilded Cage), crafting adventure that comes at breakneck speed. Elly’s fantastic escapades take her to places peopled with colorful and interesting characters: standouts include Ursula the “angel,” Frau Moser, who unexpectedly finds the courage to stand up to evil, a porter named Thomas Jefferson with a heart of gold, and Paw-paw, whose world view is entirely in sync with Elly’s.
What makes this a page turner is Quaver’s unique skill at building adventure alongside realistic history; the World War I scenes, though authentic, are jarring in their realism, disrupting the charmed fictional universe of Elly’s ordeals, as when one character wisely reflects “I always thought that wars was fought for reasons. But what could be so all-fired important that men has got to die like squashed bugs for it?” Throughout it all, Elly’s the same courageous, unshrinking heroine, molding this into another series stunner.
Takeaway: Breakneck adventures of a young musical prodigy in the early 20th century.
Comparable Titles: Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Kirby Larson’s Hattie series.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
