Often I read twenty-first century middle grade fiction books in which the writing ranges from average to good, and I could recommend the book as a decent read—except for one minor dealbreaker or content advisory. Maybe the book has an evil character who swears once or twice, or the author has inserted a bit of modern propaganda or a minor character is added only to please the diversity crowd. I can overlook a certain amount of this kind of thing, but others may not be willing to do so. Then, I try to tell people the facts and let them decide.
Rooftoppers, a very popular British import, is in a different class. (Rooftoppers are abandoned and orphan children who live on the rooftops of Paris.) The writing–the metaphors and the sentence structures and the word choice–is excellent. I’ll give you a few examples, chosen almost at random:
“When they began to play, the music was different. It was sweeter, wilder. Sophie sat up properly and shifted forward until only half an inch of her bottom was on her seat. It was so beautiful that it was difficult for her to breathe. If music can shine, Sophie thought, this music shone. It was like all the voices in all the choirs in the city rolled into a single melody.”
“Money can make people inhuman. It is best to stay away from people who care too much about money, my darling. They are people with shoddy, flimsy brains.”
“Sophie looked and gasped. Below her feet, Paris stretched out toward the river. Paris was darker than London: It was a city lit in blinks and flickers. And it was Fabergé-egg beautiful, she thought. It was magic carpet stuff.”
“To most things in life, there is no trick, but to balance, Sophie thought, there was a trick of sorts. The trick was knowing where to find your center; balance lay somewhere between her stomach and her kidneys. It felt like a lump of gold in amongst brown organs. It was difficult to find, but once found, it was like a place marked in a book–easy to recover. “
The story itself is good, too. One year old Sophie survives the sinking of her ship at sea. She is taken in by her fellow survivor and rescuer, the eccentric scholar Charles Maxim. Charles is a wonderful guardian, but the powers-that-be, child care officers and social welfare committees, finally decide, just after Sophie’s twelfth birthday, that she must be removed to an orphanage so that she can be properly cared for–no more trousers and no writing on the walls and and no Charles Maxim to encourage her unorthodox ways. Sophie and Charles are both devastated. Coincidentally, just before Sophie is set to leave, guardian and child find an important clue about Sophie’s mother, who is said to have died when the ship sank. There is just the slightest possibility that she didn’t die, that she is somewhere in Paris. And so Sophie and Charles Maxim run away to Paris to look for Sophie’s cello-playing mother, and there they discover the Rooftoppers.
So far, so good. Excellent writing, a lively plot, endearing characters, building action–I can see why the book was an award-winning, best-selling success in Britain and why it is becoming more and more well known in the U.S. I had a very bright young lady recommend the book to me when I was in Ireland a few years ago, but I’m just now getting around to reading it.
But . . . our young protagonist, Sophie, with “hair the color of lightning”, “tall and generous and bookish and awkward”, also spits and curses. She curses and uses God’s name in vain several times in the course of the story. And it’s totally acceptable to her own conscience and to everyone else in the story. There’s nary an admonition, and no one blinks an eye. And then, there’s the fight scene. Sophie and her friends, the Rooftoppers, are attacked by another gang of young rooftoppers on a roof, of course. The children fight with teeth and nails, sharpened bone daggers, stones, and at least one knife. They bite and scratch and throw rocks and roof slates and draw blood, and Sophie kicks one of her (male) opponents in the crotch, rendering him incapacitated. The advice Sophie gets during the fight is serious and dangerous: “Punch like you mean it.” Kick him if you can’t punch him.” “Kicking is less personal.” “Do not mess with rooftoppers.”
So. Dealbreaker? I couldn’t hand this one to any of my young library patrons without a warning at least. And I won’t shelve it in my library, even though the author, “a fellow in English literature at All Souls College, Oxford’ has talent. I just wish she had left out the cursing and toned down the fighting.
