From: park/dobbin <bdobbin>
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:32:30 -0500

I discovered this title by perusing the Phoenix Award list. On my website I have a page titled "Recent Reading," on which I list titles I've read and give very brief summaries. (Interestingly, it's one of the most popular features on the site; I get lots of comments about my lists.) Here's what I wrote about Enchantress a couple months ago; I had chosen it as my "book of the month":

Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Engdahl

 science fiction. A 'first-contact' story. Wonderful characters: the heroine Elana and her supporting cast are so skillfully fleshed out that I truly believed in them and their world. Newbery Honor book and Phoenix Award title. The Phoenix Award is given annually by the Children's Literature Association to a book that has remained in print for at least twenty years and did not win a major award at the time of initial publication. I wish this award were better known; it seems a most worthy one, recognizing books that have endured with minimal fanfare, and this title is a great example.

*** I'd like to know what folks thought of the device--Prologue and Epilogue--making the story itself Elana's 'report.' Such devices tend to make me grumpy, but others don't seem to be much bothered by them?

Thank you, ccbc-net, for the chance to discuss this book. --Linda Sue Park

~~~ Linda Sue Park http://www.lindasuepark.com
"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write." --Stephen King
~~~
Received on Mon 05 Nov 2001 02:32:30 PM CST