Rules for Stealing Stars

June 15, 2015
Eleven-year-old Silly and her three older sisters have always tiptoed around their alcoholic mother and her unpredictable moods. Things are even worse this summer now that the family has moved into their mother’s childhood home in New Hampshire, and Silly’s sisters are acting especially distant. Soon, Silly comes to share in the secret her sisters have been keeping from her: the house’s closets can transport them to a magical realm. It also turns out that Silly can manipulate this magic in a way that none of her sisters can. Like the dancing princesses of fairy-tale legend, the girls discover new wonders and gain much-needed escapes from their day-to-day lives whenever they go inside. Each closet is different, and while some bring delight or contain memories, others hold darker secrets. The siblings’ relationships are complex and believable, and their pain at their fractured family life is raw and real. Haydu (Making Pretty) makes skilled use of her story’s fantastical overlay to create a haunting narrative about the ways family members can fail—but also support—each other. Ages 8–12. Agent: Victoria Marini, Gelfman Schneider.

June 15, 2015
Four sisters escape a difficult home life by spending more and more time in their magical closets. Narrated in first person by 11-year-old Silly, this story is saturated with the deep sadness felt by four daughters whose mother is drinking, depressed, and unpredictably cruel to them. When the sisters discover that their closets are gateways to magical worlds, they begin to use them to seek solace and to try to learn about the source of their mother's problems. When one sister, Marla, becomes trapped inside a closet, her sisters save her by convincing her of the wonders she's missing in the real world beyond the closet door. There are many lessons here: that magic exists in both the mysterious and the mundane, that the same magic can heal or hurt, and that it is precisely when trouble and grief make us want to isolate ourselves that we most need to seek the comfort and the strength of those who care about us. The plot, while plagued by some loose ends, is compelling, and the sisters are distinctive and interesting characters. It is the sadness, though, that takes center stage. There is hope here as well, but it feels small and almost peripheral. A tough read, this story of tragedy, magic, and sisterhood does proffer some rewards for readers who stick with it. (Magical realism. 10-14)

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Starred review from July 1, 2015

Gr 4-7-Silly's family is in distress. Moving to their New Hampshire summer house, which was supposed to help, has only exacerbated her mother's drinking problem. Silly's father finds refuge in his academic study of fairy tales, leaving 11-year-old Silly and her three sisters to fend for themselves. Silly resents the fact that her siblings view her as the baby, and exclude her from the secrets they hide behind their bedroom doors. But the day their mother finally turns her wrath on Silly, the bedroom door cracks open and Astrid pulls Silly into the room to share their secret: the bedroom closet is a magic portal that allows the girls to escape to worlds of their creating. "We let the closet take care of us" Astrid explains, "and it always does." Silly soon discovers other closets are magical as well, feeding what each girl needs. Not all the girls' desires are benevolent, however, and as the summer wears on, the seductive alternative worlds begin to separate the sisters. Silly realizes the siren call of the closets may soon cause irreparable damage. Haydu masterfully portrays the stress of living with an alcoholic parent. While narrator Silly is most fully voiced, all four sisters are well developed and readers share their pain as they search to fill the void left by their mother, creating a pattern of ever-shifting alliances as they seek balance. But when one of the sisters gets trapped in a closet, the sisters must find the strength to break down doors, both literal and metaphorical. VERDICT A well-crafted blend of realism and fantasy. Give to fans of Holly Goldberg Sloan's Counting By 7s (Dial, 2013) and Sarah Weeks's So B It (Harper, 2004).-Nancy Nadig, Penn Manor School District, Lancaster, PA

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2015
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* This lyrical story of love and lossrealistic but interwoven with light fantasybeautifully captures the unbreakable bond between 11-year-old Silly and her family. Silly and her older siblings, Marla and twins Eleanor and Astrid, have moved permanently from Massachusetts to their summer house in New Hampshire. I shouldn't be lonely when I have three sisters, Silly thinks. Yet she is because they all keep disappearing into their rooms and shutting her out. Their mother drinks excessively and is severely depressed, and their fairy taleloving professor father is in a state of denial. After Astrid and Eleanor discover that the house's closets are magical, each sister finds inside them what they wanteven if, in the end, it's not good for them. Marla begins spending so much time there that her father forgets who she is, forcing Silly to embrace the special spark of magic inside her to help her and her sisters save Marla. The way the sisters fight and love in equal measure, as well as their basic need for one another, rings poignantly true in this touching and heartwarming story, which contains a tiny bit of magic, right here in the real world. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2015
When eleven-year-old Priscilla's family moves into Mom's childhood home, the secrecy between her oldest sisters Astrid and Eleanor, and later including next-oldest sister Marla, becomes infuriating: Why is the youngest always left out? Priscilla eventually learns that the house's closets perform varying types of magic: one transports the sisters into worlds Astrid has created in dioramas; another reveals family memories. The escape afforded by the magic closets fulfills an increasing need as Mom's troubled mental state and unpredictable behavior worsen: she's drinking too much, wandering the house all night, and suddenly talking about a sister she's never mentioned before. The solution to that mystery lies in the closet worlds, but not in the way the girls (or readers) imagine. Haydu's contemplative voice and pace may be better suited to young adult realism (OCD Love Story, rev. 9/13; Life by Committee, rev. 7/14), but her first fantasy novel for younger readers is full of nuanced relationships. There's Marla's desperate attachment to borderline-abusive Mom, which becomes hard for her to bear when Mom is sent away to a rehab center. There's spacey Dad, a folklore professor who brings up the relevant Twelve Dancing Princesses tale but who's oblivious when Marla gets stuck in the darkest of the closet worlds. Whether the magic is shedding light on family secrets or turning some fabric scraps into warm, glowing stars that comfort Priscilla, it exists to serve the real world. shoshana flax

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)