The turnaway girls

Format:

Book

Title:

The turnaway girls

Author:

Chewins, Hayley author

ISBN:

9780763697921

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

Somerville, Massachusetts : Candlewick Press, 2018.

Physical Description:

258 pages ; 22 cm

Summary:

"Twelve-year-old Delphernia Undersea has spent her whole life in the cloister, hidden from sea and sky by a dome of stone and the laws of Blightsend. Outside, the Masters - all boys and men - play music. Inside, the turnaway girls silently, silently make that music into gold. Making shimmers, Mother Nine calls it. But Delphernia can't make shimmer. She would rather sing than stay silent. When a Master who doesn't act like a Master comes to the skydoor, it's a chance for Delphernia to leave the cloister. Outside the stone dome, the sea breathes like a wind beast, the sky watches with stars like eyes, and even the gardens have claws. Outside, Delphernia is caught between the island's silent Custodian and its ominous Childer-Queen. Outside, there is a poem-speaking prince and a girl who makes Delphernia think of freedom. Delphernia doesn't know how to be free in Blightsend. Blightsend can't be free without her."-- Publisher's description.

Subject(s):

Magic -- Juvenile fiction.

Music -- Juvenile fiction.

Gold -- Juvenile fiction.

Singing -- Juvenile fiction.

Girls -- Abuse of -- Juvenile fiction.

Sex discrimination -- Juvenile fiction.

Girls -- Abuse of -- Fiction.

Sex discrimination -- Fiction.

Genre:

Fantasy fiction -- Juvenile fiction.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	TEEN Chewins, H.	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Delphernia Undersea wants to sing. But everyone on Blightsend knows music belongs to the Masters -- and girls with singing throats are swallowed by the sea.

On the strange, stormy island of Blightsend, twelve-year-old Delphernia Undersea has spent her whole life in the cloister of turnaway girls, hidden from sea and sky by a dome of stone and the laws of the island. Outside, the Masters play their music. Inside, the turnaway girls silently make that music into gold. Making shimmer, Mother Nine calls it. But Delphernia can't make shimmer. She would rather sing than stay silent. When a Master who doesn't act like a Master comes to the skydoor, it's a chance for Delphernia to leave the cloister. Outside the stone dome, the sea breathes like a wild beast, the sky watches with stars like eyes, and even the gardens have claws. Outside, secrets fall silent in halls without sound. And outside, Delphernia is caught -- between the island's sinister Custodian and its mysterious Childer-Queen. Between a poem-speaking prince and a girl who feels like freedom. And in a debut that glimmers with hope and beauty, freedom -- to sing, to change, to live -- is precisely what's at stake.

Author Notes

Hayley Chewins grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, in a house full of books. A published poet, she studied classical voice before switching to a degree in English literature. The Turnaway Girls is her first novel. Hayley Chewins lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Delphernia Undersea, 12, longs to escape the dank cloister where she must silence her singing voice or be "swallowed by the sea." As one of the turnaways, who are neither seen nor heard, Delphernia's only function is to make shimmer: gold molded from the music of the Masters, which pays the Custodian of Blightsend for their upkeep. Delphernia can't seem to create shimmer, though, and is punished cruelly for it. Then, while everyone sleeps, Delphernia frees her voice, creating a golden bird with a beating heart. When she is chosen by young Master Bly to leave the cloister to spin gold, she's terrified that her secret-that she can create life with her song-will come out, but wonder and shocking revelations await her on Blightsend, as does a friendship with a fellow outsider, a female Master named Linna Lundd. Writing in Delphernia's wry voice, Chewin, a poet, weaves an unusual, beautiful debut that sings with all the grace of the cloisterwings that Delphernia brings to life with her soaring voice. Entwining themes of rebellion, freedom, identity, and finding one's destiny are at the center of this lovely tale. Ages 10-14. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Horn Book Review

Lyrical language and vivid descriptions bring the eerie world of Blightsend alive in this haunting fantasy. Delphernia struggles to endure a life underground and alongside the sea, which she has been told since childhood will swallow her if she sings. Sinister villains, golden birds, a prince with a tortured soul, a young queen, and a strangely magnetic girl round out the cast of this spellbinding tale. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

In a land where music belongs solely to Masters, a 12-year-old girl dares to sing. Cloistered with the other turnaway girls, Delphernia Undersea knows her place is to be quiet and invisible and her role to obediently transform the Masters' music into golda process called "making shimmer." But somewhere between knowing her place and actually keeping it, Delphernia not only cannot make shimmer, but she flouts Mother Nine's warnings that the sea swallows girls with singer throats and sings secretly at night, molding her voice's bright notes into fluttering golden birds. When a strange Master chooses to take her with him as part of the Festival of Bells, Delphernia is suddenly thrust into a dangerous world of music, royalty, unearthed secrets, and freedom in the form of a pale, defiant trans girl named Linna. Music and secrets, in fact, are in the very bones of this debut novel. Chewins' unhurried, first-person narration by a brown-skinned, curly-haired protagonist deftly reveals a tapestry of magic, power, and rebellion thread by ethereal thread. Questions of stratified gender roles, corruption, and what happens when a society stops asking questions fit with (and even enhance) Chewins' tale of music, magic, and self-discovery. An abrupt conclusion is the only piece that feels out of place, distracting precisely because readers will have been utterly mesmerized by the rest of the narrative.Hope is ever the thing with feathers, and feathers abound here. (Fantasy. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Chewins' creative and imaginative debut is set in a cloister on the fantastical island of Blightsend, where Delphernia works as a turnaway girl, trained to make gold out of music that the island's Masters play. Turnaway girls are not allowed to sing, but Delphernia secretly does at great risk to her safety. When an opportunity to leave the cloister arises, she takes it and meets others with secrets of their own. Bolstered by new friendships and the courage inside her, Delphernia endeavors to help bring truth and freedom to Blightsend. The writing in this novel is beautiful soft, poetic, and flowing like the sea but the plot is confusing. It stalls at the start and never fully forms, ultimately feeling disjointed. Though geared toward middle-grade readers, children may struggle to stay engaged with a story that is more about the poetry of the writing than the progression of the plot. However, persistent readers who reach the story's end will be rewarded by unveiled secrets and unifying connections between the narrative's events and characters.--Florence Simmons Copyright 2018 Booklist