Alessandra Lavagnino Boeken

Drawn from actual events and characters in the author’s family history, The Librarians of Alexandria is a multi-generational saga spanning the years from the Unification of Italy in 1870 to the end of the Second World War. The librarians are the two Sisters Canterno: the beautiful, impassioned Marta and the withdrawn yet loving Margherita. Their intertwining stories are told by Marta’s daughter, Adriana, who alternately narrates as a young girl and as a grown woman, reminiscing with the aged and infirm Margherita. Set in Alexandria, Rome, and Palermo, the novel is at once circular and epic, a love song to culture – to languages and books, art and music – told in sensuous prose that evokes the sounds of rustling parchment manuscripts, parlor games, songs, and the strife of antiaircraft fire, while conjuring the scents of old libraries, dusty alleys, silkworm farms, and mandarin oranges.

Heidi is five when she is sent to live with her grandfather in his lonely hut in the Alps. She quickly grows to love her carefree life with him in the mountain air, and the old man comes to love her, too. They are both unhappy when Heidi is sent away again, to a family in town, but she soon manages to get home to her Alpsýand to share her happiness with her new friends.Eva Ibbotson is the author of books published to wide acclaim in Great Britain and the U.S.

A Dutch boy and girl work toward two goals--finding the doctor who can restore their father's memory and winning the competition for the silver skates