Rooftoppers

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I recommend it for children aged 8 and up. I also recommend Rundell's other books, The Explorer, The Wolf Wilder and the Good Thieves. The resource explores: The Louvre and the Mona Lisa, The Eiffel Tower and Gustave Eiffel and The Arc de Triomphe and Napoleon Bonaparte. In Paris, Sophie, ever drawn to heights, pops through a skylight and meets Matteo, a rooftop dwelling orphan who helps her look for the source of mysterious cello music that floats over the city. But how long can they search before the authorities catch them?

Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, set in the 19th century, begins after the sinking of a transatlantic ocean liner. A baby girl is found floating alone in a cello case. A man pulls her from the water. He is Charles Maxim, an eccentric scholar, who adopts the girl and names her Sophie. Precocious Sophie grows up in London as Charles's ward. She enters her adolescence polite, good-hearted, bookish and as eccentric as Charles. She spends her time reading books, climbing trees, and wearing outlandish clothing. Sophie and Charles seem perfectly united, but they diverge on one big issue: Sophie's mother. Charles believes that she was a passenger on the ship who died during its sinking. Sophie, however, is determined that not only did her mother not die, but she was a cellist in the ship's orchestra. Sophie pines for her mother, and determines to find her one day, even in the face of Charles's (and the world's) insistence that she is not alive and thus, cannot be found. Sophie was the most charming, adorable, and spirited twelve-year-old and Charles was her eccentric and loving guardian who had an extremely odd but wonderful way of taking care of her. He filled her mind with the knowledge of words since she was young, let her wear pants, and encouraged her to play her cello on the rooftops. just a wonderful, magical, extraordinary book. the kind of classic-feeling book you can put in the hands of a little girl and feel confident that with it, she will grow into a wonderful, magical, extraordinary creature herself. it might work on boys, too, who knows? but right now i am speaking to the fathers i know with young daughters who are looking for that book that will leave an impression on them in a literary role-model kind of way: a strong and smart and brave little girl raised by an eccentric man who may not have taught her much about how to be conventional, but who has shared a love of language and adventure, and has raised her to be fierce and loyal and courageous and independent.Winner of the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Read about the Faber story, find out about our unique partnerships, and learn more about our publishing heritage, awards and present-day activity.

Hopeful, inspiring and thrilling in equal measure, this is a classic adventure story about pursuing your dreams and never ignoring a possible. Justin Casquejo is an American who has scaled several skyscrapers in Manhattan, New York City, as well as a water tower in his hometown, Weehawken, New Jersey. Your class will look an apostrophes used to show possession and the resource includes plural possession to explore too with your Year 3 / Year 4 class.

Reading Skills - Rooftoppers - Chapter 2

Think of nighttime with a speaking voice. Or think how moonlight might talk, or think of ink, if ink had vocal cords. Give those things a narrow aristocratic face with hooked eyebrows, and long arms and legs, and that is what the baby saw as she was lifted out of her cello case and up into safety. His name was Charles Maxim, and he determined, as he held her in his large hands—at arm’s length, as he would a leaky flowerpot—that he would keep her.As the lady from the National Childcare Agency will often point out, Charles has little idea of how to bring up a female infant. But he is both imaginative and kind. Soon Sophie (for that's what he calls her) is enjoying the kind of upbringing any child would dream about, with lots of exciting things to explore and no silly rules about dressing like a little lady or not writing on the walls. Charles's idea of a perfect birthday treat is eating a tub of ice-cream on top of a coach-and-four galloping around Hyde Park in the rain. And he reads to her from Shakespeare and takes her to concerts, at one of which she hears a cello and falls in love. So he buys her one: The two decide to run away to Paris in search of Sophie’s mother, who she insists is still alive. While there, Sophie meets a peculiar boy who lives on the rooftops who may just lead her to find her mother.

Rooftoppers reads very much like two separate stories. The London section, while vital to the rest of the book, feels just a bit contrived ... In contrast, the Parisian section is magical in the way that the best fairy tales are - combining elements of the fantastic and the grittily realistic into an irresistible alchemical brew... continued Miss Eliot (from The National Childcare Agency) is also concerned about the baby’s (whom Charles has named Sophie) care. Remi Lucidi aka Remi Enigma, a 30-year-old French daredevil and photographer known for climbing skyscrapers, fell to his death from the 68th floor of Tregunter Towers in Hong Kong. [25] Charles and Sophie go to the police station to find out if Vivienne was on the records of the sinking ship. The police refuse to let them see the ship’s records, which makes Charles and Sophie suspicious .Gérard is another rooftop orphan who joins the search for Sophie’s mother. He is confident, knowledgeable and has remarkable hearing. Wu Yongning, known as the Chinese Superman; died in 2017 while performing a rooftopping stunt. [21] [22] [23] [24] Short and sweet - an urban fairytale targeted at children that should be reviewed in the spirit it was written and not by grown-up standards. Rundell is an astonishing young talent and her books combine old-fashioned, edge-of-your-seat adventure with richly imagined characters … Read everything she writes Could this tale, which begins in the 1890s, take place in the modern era? How would modern technology change the story?