The Maestro - Softcover

Tim Wynne-Jones is one of Canada's foremost writers for children. The author of over thirty books, he is a two-time winner of the Governor General's Award, as well as a two-time winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and of the Arthur Ellis Award. He is the recipient of many other prizes at home and internationally including the Edgar Award and the Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. In 2012 he was made an Officer to the Order of Canada. He lives in Perth, Ontario.

Grade 6-9. After observing his violent, abusive father's rendezvous with a waitress, Burl Crow runs away. He heads into the Canadian wilderness and discovers the retreat of Nathaniel Orlando Gow, an eccentric, world-renowned pianist. During their brief encounter, they become friends and Gow tells the boy about the oratorio he is composing. The man returns to Toronto and suddenly dies. After receiving the bad news from Bea, Gow's supply pilot, Burl begins living a lie of his own creation?that he is the Maestro's illegitimate son. Bea sends him to Toronto to make a claim for the lake and cabin, but instead he seeks out Gow's friend, who encourages him to rescue the oratorio. On his way back north, Burl is helped by a former teacher who offers him a home. He is trailed by his father who, in a drunken rage, sets the hideaway on fire. Everything?including Gow's piano and oratorio?is destroyed and Burl, seeing his father engulfed in flames, saves him. Complicated? Yes, and not totally convincing. Wynne-Jones's writing is powerful in its description of individuals and situations, but does not probe either in much depth. Burl often seems naive and younger than his 14 years. His feelings for his father are not strongly portrayed, yet the novel hangs on actions that result from these feelings. Characters are drawn and then dropped, and their stories never lead anywhere except to move Burl toward a rather unrealistic ending. A complex novel that may not hold readers' interest.?Wendy D. Caldiero, New York Public Library
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