Book Ende

My roommate picked this up by accident at Half Price Books. It was right next to all the Judy Blume books that we were looking at. It turns out it was a happy accident and hopefully many more people will make the same mistake. The title is really long so we'll call it "Cornelia" for short. I was not expecting much from this book. I started reading it just out of curiosity and it turned out to be delightful. It is neither too serious nor too ridiculous. There are two stories intertwined in this book and you can predict pretty easily how they come together in the end, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable for me. The main story is about a young girl, Cornelia, who lives with her mother, a famous concert pianist, in a large apartment in Greenwich Village. Cornelia is extremely introverted, she hates going on playdates with other girls from school, and she loves to read (she has a fascination with dictionaries). Since her mother is away most of the time, Cornelia has a nanny who lives with them.

One day, a new resident moves into Cornelia's apartments, across the hall from her. She is curious so she cautiously walks over to investigate. This is where the second story begins to unfold. In the apartment, she meets a woman named Virginia Somerset. The two form a fast friendship and Virginia becomes a kind of "personal Scheherazade"  to Cornelia as she tells tales of her travels and adventures with her sisters.

"Cornelia . . ." is Lesley Blume's debut children's novel. I was curious to find out her background so I went to her website which is, in and of itself, a portrait of this extraordinary woman. I will leave that to you to check out. I found it charming to watch Cornelia change through her interactions with Virginia. The interjections of adventure stories, while lengthy at times, add color and excitement to an otherwise ordinary story.