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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Wolff, V. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Allegra Shapiro decides to enter a prestigious competition for young musicians, but ends up spending the summer doing more than practicing the violin. She learns important lessons about her family and herself, in this novel by the author of the National Book Award-winning "True Believer."
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-- Allegra Leah Shapiro is happily making the transition from seventh-grade softball season to summertime when she can concentrate on her violin lessons. At their first session, her teacher informs her that she has been chosen as a finalist in a competition for young musicians, probably the youngest of those selected. Allegra, a gifted violinist, plays in a youth orchestra in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, but she is also a three-dimensional, real 12-year-old who wrangles good-naturedly with her older brother, chafes at her parents' restrictions on late-night bike riding, is loyal to her friends, and is intensely curious about the world around her. As the summer progresses, several themes weave in and out of Allegra's consciousness and growth as she struggles with the Mozart concerto she will play in the competition. A strange dancing man who appears at outdoor concerts, the mysterious sadness surrounding her mother's friend Deirdre, and a very special gift from her grandmother in New York--all these find their way into Allegra's awareness and eventually into her own interpretation of the concerto. With a clear, fresh voice that never falters, Wolff gives readers a delightful heroine, a fully realized setting, and a slowly building tension that reaches a stunning climax at the competition. Like Patricia MacLachlan in The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt (1988) and Bruce Brooks in Midnight Hour Encores (1986, both HarperCollins), Wolff interweaves the themes of adolescence, music, and striving for excellence with great success. A book that will richly reward its readers. --Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the beginning of summer, 12-year-old Allegra Leah Shapiro finds out that she has been selected as a finalist in a local violin competition. She spends the summer practicing Mozart's fourth violin concerto, preparing for the competition and sorting through her conflicting feelings about wanting to be herself and wanting to please her parents and grandmother. The Mozart Season is long on rumination and short on action, as Allegra wrestles with everything from what it takes to be a musician to what it means to be half Jewish and half Gentile to the exact nature of her connection with her grandmother, murdered in a concentration camp during World War II. Unfortunately, Wolff's constant repetition of themes is hardly hypnotic, as was probably intended, but simply mind numbing. However, Wolff's slightly flawed work contains some redeeming qualities--it is a pleasure to have a novel of ideas for young adults that describes the delicate dance between honoring traditions of the past and being your own person in the present. Ages 11-13. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
As twelve-year-old Allegra Shapiro practices her violin for a prestigious music competition, she tries to define her relationship with music as well as find her way through the increasingly complicated world of a young teenager. A distinctive novel, with intriguing characters and a touch of romance. From HORN BOOK 1991, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
With the same thoughtful attention to original characterization that we saw in Probably Still Nick Swansen (1988), Wolff now offers a book for a slightly younger audience. Allegra, 12, describes the summer she spends preparing for a prestigious young musicians' competition in her home state of Oregon. When, against considerable odds, she becomes a finalist, both Allegra's loving musician parents and her empathetic teacher leave the decision of whether to proceed to her. Allegra chooses, almost as a whim, to go on--and then is plunged into a period of self-doubt and self-discovery inspired both by her wonderfully evoked creative interaction with the violin concerto she's preparing and by her relationships with family, friends, fellow competitors, and even ``Mr. Trouble,'' a strange, sadly disabled man who shows up to dance at outdoor concerts where Allegra serves as a page-turner. A luminously realized character, Allegra is gifted not only musically but in her sensitive, intelligent responses to events- -an authentic range of joy, anger, and terror that are both characteristic of her age and unique to her. Her season of discovery--of Mozart, her own roots, and the creative balance between life's traumas and trivia--marks a fine achievement. (Fiction. 12+)