Horn Book Review
(Middle School) "Small and delicate" Miranda does recall coming to the mysterious old manor house where she lives, having been blown there by the wind and found by Wysteria, the old woman who keeps her there for her useful small fingers that can mend nets and thus make money. Beyond her initial arrival, Miranda doesn't remember much, and the old woman keeps her world so small and enclosed, and Miranda herself literally weighted down with steel-plated boots, that she gradually loses sight of her true identity. The first third of the narrative sets the scene like a gothic novel, with the manor to explore and the mood somber, but once Miranda discovers a roomful of kites and meets a boy who returns one that got away, the pace picks up to a more child-friendly speed. The book ends on a surprising and joyful note, leaving Miranda's nature intriguingly open-ended, like a sweeter Skellig. The formal tone may put some young readers off, but those with patience will be rewarded. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Miranda is so small, the wind picks her up and blows her from a home she can't remember to an imposing house on the water. She is taken in by a widow, Wysteria, who lives alone in the house, Bourne Manor, and is obsessed by it. Miranda accepts that she must spend her days mending the nets that the local fishermen use; she even gets used to the solitary existence that Wysteria insists upon. Then she finds a stash of elegant kites that Wysteria's seafaring husband carefully made before his suspicious death; with the kites and a new friend, Miranda begins to sense that a different life for herself is possible. Murphy sets her story in the Lake Champlain area, perhaps in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and employs a studied, almost Charlotte Bronte-like narrative in this flawed yet imaginative story. The core of the tale that Bourne Manor is a house determined to keep its inhabitants in its clutches is more told than shown, and there's never a real sense of danger. Miranda, however, is crisply portrayed, and it's her evolution that will interest readers.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2008 Booklist
