Rooftoppers: 10th Anniversary Edition

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On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel. 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". Hopeful, inspiring and thrilling in equal measure, this is a classic adventure story about pursuing your dreams and never ignoring a possible. Rooftoppers started out brilliantly; the first chapters were full of whimsy and a sense of randomness that I completely fell in love with. The beginning of the story, which chronicles how our heroine, Sophie, is found as a baby floating in the ocean in a cello case and adopted by the kind-hearted scholar, Charles, was a pure delight.

It wasn’t compulsory to send girls to primary school until 1883, so many girls weren’t taught to read and write beyond what they needed to know at home. 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. This is such a beautiful story told in a very distinct voice. There are times when you just know you are reading a classic and this is one such time. Mostly, though, it made me think of A Little Princess, with a very different sense of social justice: no romanticizing of the diamond mines into something out of The Arabian Nights; no meek and grateful poor children, and no patient suffering. Sophie is a wonderful character, the rooftoppers she meets are heartbreaking and yet so strong, and I fell head over heels with Charles. It's whimsical and funny, too, which I don't think of A Little Princess as being, and yet ... that rooftop feast, for hungry Matteo (and Sophie, though hers was a voluntary hunger!), had the same emotional payoff as the one from the earlier book.Maxim and Sophie, threatened with immediate eviction to an orphanage, decide to run out of the country and head to Paris, chasing a wild dream of finding the girl's mother from a clue hidden in the cello box. Mother-hunting becomes the main interest for Sophie. Without impunding in any way her love for Charles, the girl is in need of "A place to put down her heart. A resting stop to recover her breath. A set of stars and maps." The Parisian authorities prove to be even more inflexible and corrupt than the London ones, and Sophie only finds help and understanding in a band of outlaws and orphans like herself - a group of lost children living like savages among the rooftops of the city. Thus is the rooftoppers club born, an a charming novel written. But the more you think about, the less romantic it is. I mean, they’re probably really dirty and well, if you fell you’d pretty much be smushed and don’t even get me started on the pigeons. I can only just deal with the pigeons when I’m walking on solid ground but if I’m balancing on a weathervane and a pigeon flies at me? 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. Miss Eliot did not approve of Charles, nor of Sophie. She disliked Charles’s carelessness with money, and his lateness at dinner. 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.

It's true that this is a children's book, but I think readers of all ages will be able to enjoy it. The setting is in England and France and the descriptions of the cities are gorgeous—French pastry shops, parks, bridges, and streets. 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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Sophie, whose only possession is the cello box she was found drifting in, lives for 12 happy years in Charles' household, homeschooled in the most unconventional ways, allowed to ask any question she likes, read whatever she takes a fancy to and climb any tree or rooftop in sight. Their iddylic existence is put in danger when social services decide this is no way to raise a proper lady.