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| Incantation
by Alice Hoffman | |
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Summary
| From a New York Times bestselling author comes a journey ofloss and rebirth with a startling premise inspired by historical fact.Estrella is a Marrano: one of the Spanish Jews living double lives whenthose who refused conversion risked everything. Estrella's discovery thather family secretly practices the ancient way of wisdom known as kabbalahleads her to her true self and true love-but also to a devastatingconfrontation with unimaginable evil, unleashed by the betrayal of afriend. With themes of faith, friendship, and persecution, Alice Hoffman'stragic and beautiful novel resonates profoundly in our times. | |
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Characters
| Family practices the Jewish faith in secret; her best friend betrays her; grandfather, mother and brother are brutally murdered; loves Catalina's fiance; preparing to escape to Amsterdam | |
| Attributes | spanish | |
| Engaged | |
| Estrella's best friend; jealous of Estrella and betrays her; loses her fiance to Estrella | |
Genre
| Young adult fiction | |
| Family | |
| Historical | |
| Religious | |
Topics
Setting
| Encaleflora, Spain -- Europe | |
Time Period
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From a New York Times bestselling author comes a journey ofloss and rebirth with a startling premise inspired by historical fact.Estrella is a Marrano: one of the Spanish Jews living double lives whenthose who refused conversion risked everything. Estrella's discovery thather family secretly practices the ancient way of wisdom known as kabbalahleads her to her true self and true love-but also to a devastatingconfrontation with unimaginable evil, unleashed by the betrayal of afriend. With themes of faith, friendship, and persecution, Alice Hoffman'stragic and beautiful novel resonates profoundly in our times.
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Alice Hoffman, an American novelist and screenwriter, was born in New York City on March 16, 1952. She earned a B.A. from Adelphi University in 1973 and an M.A. in creative writing from Stanford University in 1975 before publishing her first novel, Property Of, in 1977. <P> She is the author of more than fifteen novels, two books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Known for blending realism and fantasy in her fiction, Hoffman often creates richly detailed characters who live on society's margins and places them in extraordinary situations as she did with At Risk, her 1988 novel about the AIDS crisis. Some of her other works include The Drowning Season, Seventh Heaven, The River King, Blue Diary, The Probable Future, and The Ice Queen. Her book, The Third Angel, won the 2008 New England Booksellers' Award for fiction. Two of her novels, Practical Magic and Aquamarine, were made into films. She has also written numerous screenplays, including adaptations of her own novels and the original screenplay Independence Day. <P> (Bowker Author Biography)
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Gr 9 Up-Alice Hoffman's historical novel (Little, Brown, 2006) is brought to life compellingly in Jenna Lamia's subtly accented reading. At the dawn of the 16th century, Spain's Jews have fled, been restricted to ghettoes, or converted to Christianity in order to live openly in Spanish society. Estrella's family has lived in her village for 500 years and is, as far as the 16-year-old knows, like all her neighbors and her best friend, fervently Catholic. In fact, however, they are hidden Jews, and Estrella realizes this only weeks before it occurs to the townspeople. Hoffman describes with accuracy, but without undue manipulation, the devastation of Estrella's family through torture and murder, her confrontation of the truths about her supposed friend and her neighbors, and her newly found and embraced identity. An interesting love story adds an unusual element to the novel. An excellent choice for curriculum support as well as for casual listeners.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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During the Spanish Inquisition, 16-year-old Estrella and her family, Conversos who practice their Jewish faith in secret, face violent persecution by Christian soldiers. In a starred review, PW called this a "fascinating glimpse of a past civilization-with reverberations for both past and present," noting, "Estrella's spare, eloquent narrative evokes her sorrow and her determination to survive and never to forget the atrocities she has witnessed." Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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Growing up in Spain around 1500 in the village where her family has lived for 500 years, Estrella, 16, knows that there are secrets in her home. As books are burned in the streets, and Jews from the nearby ghetto are murdered, she confronts the reality that she is a Marrano, part of a community of underground Jews who attend a special "church." The plot tangent involving Estrella's best friend, Catalina, jealous because Estrella has taken her boyfriend, seems too purposeful, but the historical fact is compelling, with the reason for the secrets spelled out in the horrifying persecution: Estrella is witness to her mother's burning and her brother's bones being broken by the police "one at a time." Acclaimed adult writer Hoffman, whose YA books include Aquamarine0 (2001), makes the history immediate in Estrella's spare, intense first-person narrative, in which tension builds as Estrella's discovers her hidden identity. Suggest Deborah Siegel's The Cross by Day, the Mezuzzah by Night 0 (1999) or June Weltman's Mystery of the Missing Candlestick0 (2004) to readers wanting other stories about Marranos. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2006 Booklist
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