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Set in medieval Venice, this captivating fairy tale retelling by award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli explores belonging, beauty, and the transformative power of love through the eyes of a teenage girl. Dolce has grown up hidden away on an island in a lagoon. She is a giant, a freak, tormented by everyone but her loving mother. She spends her time learning the valuable secret of making mirrors.
Following a tragedy, Dolce swims away and lands on an island where people see her as normal, even beautiful. Marin, a kind widower, and his little daughter bring Dolce to live with them in their grand palazzo. Eventually, Dolce and Marin marry. She secretly continues to make mirrors, not realizing that quicksilver endangers her ... and so evil begins in innocence.
"Starred Review. [W]hen the bones of the story piece themselves together, a stunning, beautiful, and tragic reflection of Snow White emerges...An achingly lovely, sometimes frightening reimagining." - Publishers Weekly
"This well-written and brilliant spin on a familiar fairy tale provides a refreshing and thought-provoking point of view that will leave readers sympathetic to the evil stepmother." - School Library Journal
"A new and interesting romp over a well-worn path through the forest of fairy tale. Fantasy. 12-18." - Kirkus
This information about Dark Shimmer was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Donna Jo Napoli is the author of many distinguished books for young readers, among them The Great God Pan, Daughter of Venice, The Magic Circle, Zel, Breath, Bound, Stones in Water, The King of Mulberry Street, and Alligator Bayou. She has a BA in mathematics and a PhD in Romance linguistics from Harvard University and has taught widely at major universities in America and abroad. She lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where she is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College. You can visit her on the Web at donnajonapoli.com.
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