The Language of Stars
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Sarah is forced to take a summer poetry class as penance for trashing the home of a famous poet in this fresh novel about finding your own voice.
Sarah’s had her happy ending: she’s at the party of the year with the most popular boy in school. But when that boy turns out to be a troublemaker who decided to throw a party at a cottage museum dedicated to renowned poet Rufus Baylor, everything changes. By the end of the party, the whole cottage is trashed—curtains up in flames, walls damaged, mementos smashed—and when the partygoers are caught, they’re all sentenced to take a summer class studying Rufus Baylor’s poetry…with Baylor as their teacher.
For Sarah, Baylor is a revelation. Unlike her mother, who is obsessed with keeping up appearances, and her estranged father, for whom she can’t do anything right, Rufus Baylor listens to what she has to say, and appreciates her ear for language. Through his classes, Sarah starts to see her relationships and the world in a new light—and finds that maybe her happy ending is really only part of a much more interesting beginning.
The Language of Stars is a gorgeous celebration of poetry, language, and love from celebrated author Louise Hawes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hawes (Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand) transforms carelessness into redemption in a summer story that begins after a group of teens break into and throw a raging party at a beloved local poet's cottage, trashing it and nearly burning it to the ground. (A note explains that the story is partly inspired by a similar 2008 incident involving Robert Frost's summer home.) Sarah, Hawes's wide-eyed narrator, has an innate poetic bent and only reluctantly took part in the break-in because of her popular boyfriend, Fry. Though Sarah's relationship with Fry is central to the plot, the real romance is one of words. The teens are sentenced to restore the cottage and take a poetry course taught by the house's elderly owner, Rufus Baylor, who becomes a mentor to Sarah. Full of poetry and ideas, Sarah's narration has an exuberant innocence, bringing a fresh and joyful quality to a story about a girl learning to love the possibilities that come with independence: the chance to discover one's true self and desires, while forging a path forward that might fulfill them. Ages 12 up.
