The Dragonfly Pool

The thing which seems to define Eva Ibbotson's heroines are their unorthodox natures, their ability to listen and their kindness. in 11 year old Tally, the heroine of this story Ibbotson has created another heroine of this type in a satisfying adventure/romance for all ages. Tally is motherless girl in London just prior to World War II. Her father is a local doctor who serves his community rather than getting rich, and she is raised by her Aunts. Meanwhile Tally's uncle is a rich doctor who values money and prestige over substance. Tally's cousins both go to posh boarding schools with uniforms and strong discipine. When Tally is offered a scholarship to a boarding school in Devon she decides to go but with some fears having heard her cousins talking about it, but Tally's school is quite different. Possibly based on Summerhill, it is a free school where students do not wear uniform and are encouraged to take charge of their own education. where botany lessons might start at 4 in the morning with a field trip to look at badgers, and drama is pretending to be a fork. Tally and her friends meet at the Pet Hut to discuss things. A chance letter from a small European country sends them to Bergania where the King is trying to hold off the Nazi's and his son, the Crown Prince is lonely - another motherless child who is brought up by the Countess Frederica who he refers to as 'the scold'. When the King is assasinated it is Tally and her friends from Delderton who rescue him, smuggling him back to England where he is taken back to live with his grandfather, the Duke of Rottingdean and his three uncles and Aunts all of whom have been deposed from the countries they ruled. He is again living a hopeless life of imprisonment, kept trapped by his title as the heir to the throne of Bergania which is now overrun by Germany. There is nothing which Crown Prince Karil loathes more than his title and airs and graces and it is his need to escape this imrprisonment which dominates most of the book. In the background is Tally. It is interesting that Tally and Karil meet for a very short period of time and it is only a few days travelling back from Bergania that they are together, but for anyone who has ever been in a fraught situation it is amazing how quickly a close relationship can be formed. There is clearly a future for these two but it is, in the end left very much in limbo just what this will be. Ibbotson is very good at tying up lots of loose ends in her books, so the characters lives are resolved in this - Kit gets to play his cricket, and the Mongolian Pedastal dog manages to perform a service to destiny without ever having the messenger from Brazil to fulfill his breeding destiny. However I was surprised not to hear more about the aunts who were prominent at the start, or about the displaced children in the village near Delderton, who seemed to be mentioned and then forgotten. However this is a lovely and enjoyable story which can be enjoyed by t

The story begins in England in 1939 when Tally, age 11, wins a scholarship to Delderton, a progressive boarding school. She goes to a movie with a friend and sees a newsreel about the King of Bergania, who has refused to let Hitler's troops come through his country. When Delderton recieves an invitation to a folk dance festival in Bergania, Tally persuades her friends to learn to dance. They travel to Bergania and Tally becomes friends with Crown Prince Karil, who is fretting at the restrictions imposed on him. During the festival the king is assassinated. Tally and her friends smuggle Karil out of the country, then the adventure continues with foiled kidnap attempts and Karil's fight to escape form the clutches of his grandfather. The characters are well-developed. The ending is satisfying. I read the book in one day-it was so good that I could not put it down. I recommend it highly. It was even better than The Star of Kazan.

To read a book that is pure pleasure is a gift, particularly when you've been reading a lot of so-so or merely okay books for a while. My history with Eva Ibbotson has been a kind of stilted one. As a librarian I've shelved her fantasies on a regular basis. As a reader I tasted one of her realistic stories ("The Star of Kazan") and one of her more imaginative flights of fancy ("Island of the Aunts"). And I did like them both, but that was all. I "liked" them. I didn't love them, look forward to going back to them, or think about them in my spare time. They were fine and they were good and they were completely insufficient when it came to preparing me for "The Dragonfly Pool." This book has all the cleverness and charm of her previous books. But rather than indulge in a steady slow-building charm, the text in this book dives right for your throat from the start and clasps you tight for the rest of the tale. If you've never read an Ibbotson before, I suspect that here would be an excellent place to start. She has gripping kid-friendly writing down to an art. Tally, as it turns out, is the last to know. When her hard-working but penniless father tells his daughter that she has a chance to attend a progressive boarding school called Delderton, Tally is miserable at the thought. Leave all her friends and family for some school outside of London where she knows no one? The world is on the brink of WWII and it's no wonder that Tally's father is inclined to get her out of town. Once at the school, however, the girl finds herself greatly enjoying herself, learning the strengths and secrets of the kids around her. And when a chance comes to start a folkdancing group and perform in the little nation of Bergania, nothing could be sweeter. While there she even manages to strike up a friendship with the crown prince Karil. Bergania is one of the few European nations unwilling to submit to Hitler and his demands, and when tragedy strikes it's up to Tally to help Karil any way she can and up to Karil to determine once and for all what it is he would like to be as a person. The publishing blog Pub Rants once proffered a piece of writing advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since; "writers should not mistake voice for character development." Easier said than done. Ibbotson certain has voice down, but character development. . . . character development she has DOWN down, man! Example A: Consider the description of Tally's personality. A mediocre writer would say that she was strong and show one scene involving personal strength, leaving it at that. A better writer would be subtle and let Tally's strength emerge and surface as a natural part of the text. And then there is Eva Ibbotson. She wants to make it clear that Tally has a clear view of purpose and commitment. So how exactly do you show that? You throw in small unforgettable details alongside the naturally emerging strengths. You mention that her grandmother spen

Wow, this one really hit the sweet spot. I guess it's a little like Frances Hodgson Burnett's books, only written today. And with more...interesting characters. And Nazis. And naturalists (this must be a side interest of Ibbotson's--it reminded me of her Journey to the River Sea). And a class where you have to imagine turning into a spoon. And a determined heroine set on rescuing a prince. What a wonderful book!

I love all of Eva Ibbotson's books, and this enchanting tale of heroism and friendship, with its fairy-tale atmosphere, is one of her best. The story is set in 1939, just before World War II, and Hitler is on the move. The heroine, 11-year-old Tally, is sent by her father, a doctor in London, to Delderton, an unconventional boarding school in the Devon countryside where students are encouraged to think for themselves. Meanwhile, in the small European country of Bergania, the king is bravely standing up to the Nazis. His son, Crown Prince Karil, seeks solace and escape from the restrictions of court life at the Dragonfly Pool, a hidden place that his father also used as a childhood refuge. The children at Delderton are invited to a folk-dance festival in Bergania, and when Nazi conspirators assassinate the king, the children smuggle Karil out of the country to safety in England. This beautifully written story is full of adventure, narrow escapes, excitement, humor, and well-portrayed, believable characters, and Tally herself is courageous, intelligent, friendly, and commonsensical. I highly recommend this delightful book to middle schoolers, teens, and grown-ups alike. Don't miss out on it just because it's labeled "young adult."