Cassandra Live at Carnegie Hall - Hardcover

Hopper, Nancy J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803723296 ISBN 13: 9780803723290

Publisher: Dial Books, 1998

Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Cassandra, the daughter of a band leader in 1944, is horrified when her family plans to save money by moving away from their comfortable home to live in a rehearsal studio at Carnegie Hall.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-7-It is 1944, and Cassandra, 13, has just discovered that she and her mother and sister will be moving from their home in Danbury, CT, to join her father, a famous band leader, in New York City. Once there, they live in his studio at Carnegie Hall while he tries to pick up his flagging career after an auto accident. Because having a family doesn't suit his image, the siblings and their mother are introduced as distant relatives and enlisted in the promotional efforts. Of course, Cassandra hates leaving her friends; of course, she meets a boy who also lives at Carnegie Hall; and of course she learns to adjust to the fact that change is inevitable. The first-person narrative is flat and allows little character development. Readers keep waiting for Cassandra to grow up a bit and to recognize what is going on in her family, but all she does is complain. Finally, when her parents allow her to visit Danbury, she realizes that she misses her family and new friend, Tony, and returns to New York. Hopper does provide a taste of Manhattan during World War II through visits to Central Park, celebrity sightings at the Russian Tea Room, and subway rides to Brooklyn. However, there is not enough to wake up a sleeping plot and to hold readers' interest.
Susan Lissim, Dwight School, New York City
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Cassandra's dreams of lazing by the lake during the summer of 1944 suddenly dissolve just as she finishes eighth grade. Her mother abruptly announces that she is taking Cassandra and her younger sister, Annie Jack, from Connecticut to New York City, so that they can join their father, a bandleader. Credibly adopting a 13-year-old's voice, Hopper (I Was a Fifth-Grade Zebra) describes how Cassandra lives in a cramped, stuffy studio in Carnegie Hall, posing as her father's cousin from Wisconsin (so as not to tarnish his professional image as a handsome bachelor) and desperately missing her friends. Things turn sunnier when Cassandra meets Tony, a street-smart neighbor whose family has a vaudeville act. Tony becomes her first beau and shows her some of the city's attractions, including the Central Park Zoo and a mime show on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. Despite these sightseeing expeditions and occasional allusions to soldiers and the war raging "on the other side of the world," the story fails to evoke a persuasive sense of time and place. Instead of offering readers a compelling portrait of a teen and her era, the author delivers a more superficial snapshot that is pleasant to view but unlikely to leave a lasting impression. Ages 10-13.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dial Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0803723296
• ISBN 13: 9780803723290
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160