Rooftoppers: 10th Anniversary Edition

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It’s a mystery that drives the story, but the characters of the determined Sophie and bookish Charles are easy to love, which really makes the story as good as it is. The idea of “rooftoppers”, the people who live on roofs, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, is interesting, and it’s fun to follow Sophie as she becomes tangled up with the rooftoppers. Katherine Rundell's charmingly lyrical style is dotty in the way Charles is dotty. In the London section she seems interested mainly in conversations, which have a high quota of witticism (wearing a skirt, Sophie looks as if she's "mugged a librarian") and aphorisms (lawyers have all "the decency and courage of lavatory paper"). In general, her metaphors are determinedly original. Such verbal showiness, though entertaining, has the disadvantage of showing up the misses as well as the successes, and in the early stages the story has the contrived manner, but not the solidly exciting matter, of a fairytale. Matteo and some other rooftop children help Sophie to break into the police files. They find out that all the ship's musicians were recorded as being men. However, one of the musicians, called George Green , looks very similar to Sophie and is wearing a woman's shirt in a photograph.

Hopeful, inspiring and thrilling in equal measure, this is a classic adventure story about pursuing your dreams and never ignoring a possible. On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel. There are thousands and thousands of things we have not believed that turned out to be true. [...] One should not ingore the smallest glimmer of possiblity." However, once the book became plot driven, with Sophie and Charles going on a journey to find her mother, it lost its magic for me. Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell has the quality and the warmth of a children’s classic. It is a gorgeous story about a little girl in search for her mother. There aren’t many stories like this, not anymore, and as a parent, I’m extremely grateful when I discover one to share with my daughter.

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Miss Eliot (from The National Childcare Agency) is also concerned about the baby’s (whom Charles has named Sophie) care. I thought this was a very original story and it was quite fast paced. I very much enjoyed it and the dialogue, particularly when Charles was speaking, was very entertaining. I became completely lost in the story and the descriptions of Paris at night made me really want to go and explore Paris by moonlight.

The opening chapters remind me strongly of "The Storied Life of A J Fikry", but later developments turn original and distinctive, proof that Katherine Rundell is not simply writing fanfic about a bookish bachelor who tries to raise a young girl on his own, opposed by social services and keen on passing on his love for the written word. This would be a beautiful gift for a mother to give to her young daughter, but it goes deeper and is so much more than that, unwritten, unspoken, unbroken bond. It is about the power of love, in all its many forms, all of them fierce and loyal. Jen gave me this lovely book for Christmas, and it was the perfect way to start off the reading year. You're likely to hear the 'timeless children's book' descriptor a lot, and with good reason. It's timeless in the sense that it's a non-specified date in the past (early 1900s? Later 1800s?) when women were not cellists and were not supposed to wear trousers, but when it also feels perfectly right for a delightful man like Charles to rescue a baby, take her home and raise her, without bothering either of them with stupid things like school. It's also timeless in that same way because it could be a Noel Streatfield if he got in a Nanny to help out. Perhaps the pacing of the story was a conscious attempt by the author to mimic the theme of racing music. Cello music played double time is actually an important plot point in Rooftoppers. However, even if, interpreted in the most flattering light, the plot pacing was meant to replicate the musical theme, as a reader, I still found it to be unsatisfying. I said it would take quite a bit to make me want to scramble around on Parisian rooftops, but actually, all it’s taken is reading Rooftoppers.After the sinking of the Victorian liner, Queen Mary, a baby girl with "hair the colour of lightning" is found floating in a cello case in the middle of the Channel. Her rescuer, the eccentric scholar Charles Maxim, names her Sophie, takes her home to London and brings her up – in defiance of the National Childcare Agency – to be as eccentric as he is. She wears homemade, brightly coloured trousers, and lives on chips, fish in tins, cheese and, occasionally, whisky. When inspectors from the NCA observe that she looks a little pale, Charles explains that she is "cut from the stuff of the moon".

The baby was found wrapped for warmth in the musical score of a Beethoven symphony. It had drifted almost a mile from the ship, and was the last to be rescued. The man who lifted it into the rescue boat was a fellow passenger, and a scholar. It is a scholar’s job to notice things. He noticed that it was a girl, with hair the color of lightning, and the smile of a shy person. There is a wistful, old-fashioned charm to Katherine Rundell’s second book: her poetic language and imaginative approach set this book apart from many other adventure stories for this age group. Whimsical, beautifully-written and as carefully balanced as the tightrope Sophie learns to walk, Rooftoppers is a sensitive and emotionally-resonant novel with an uplifting message about the power of hope. And the setting? Let’s just say I want to go to Paris again…. now please. I adore Paris and it will always have a special place in my heart so it was so refreshing to read a story set there that wasn’t immediately bogged down by all the clichés that seem to latch themselves onto it. It was lovely to read about the city from a different perspective… one slightly higher than the others, shall we say?

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When the music went right, it drained all the itch and fret from the world and left it glowing. When she did stretch and blink and lay her bow down hours later, Sophie would feel tougher, and braver. It was, she thought, like having eaten a meal of cream and moonlight. When practice went badly, it was just a chore, like brushing her teeth. Sophie had worked out that the good and bad days divided half and half. It was worth it.Sophie's comfort with rooftops will come in handy later. For when she is twelve, the National Childcare Agency tell Charles that she must go to a Home to be Properly Looked After. Finding a label concealed inside the cello case that shows it was made in Paris, they realize that Sophie's mother might have been French, so they escape across the Channel to look for traces of her. All they can afford is a cheap hotel, where Sophie has an attic room with a skylight, and once again she climbs up to practice on the roof.