Endymion Spring author Matthew Skelton Here!

Saturday October 20, 2007
1:00 p.m.
Library Program Room

It was a dark and snowy night...

Okay, so that isn't quite the way the book begins, but it is creepy and mysterious. I was going to try to come up with a snappy summary, but this review from Kirkus sums it up really well.

"Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ This thriller takes precocious children whose lives are disrupted by their parents' separation, surrounds them with untrustworthy, professionally jealous and personally greedy academics and drops them into a mystery involving an ancient book. Said tome is made from a miraculous paper—the remains of a mythical leafdragon—and is indestructible. The result is a volume containing the secrets of eternal wisdom; it appears to be blank, but is continuously writing itself and reveals the contents only to those pure children it has chosen. The first, a young apprentice to Johann Gutenberg, is Endymion Spring, who carries the book to Oxford to keep it out of the hands of the unscrupulous Fust (Faust). Blake, a contemporary teen, finds Endymion's book hidden in plain sight on an Oxford library shelf. Characters' stories and settings alternate between medieval Germany and contemporary Oxford, and the atmosphere is steeped in cinematic imagery, especially the tenebrous world of the Bodleian Library's underground tunnels and book stacks. Allusions to legends and poetry mix with the appeal of a magical book that only answers questions in riddles. Wonderfully engaging, even addictive. (Fiction. 11-16)
(Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2006)"

I am really looking forward to meeting Matthew Skelton and I hope you join us on October 20th at 1:00 p.m.! If you have any questions, please contact the library at 459-1682.