The Staircase

by Ann Rinaldi

Overview

How could Lizzy Enders's father abandon her at a girls school run by nuns? She's surrounded by Catholics—but she's Methodist! Shunned by the other boarders, Lizzy befriends a wandering carpenter named José, who with just three tools—and unflagging faith—builds an elaborate spiral staircase in the new chapel in mere weeks. When he disappears without a trace, Lizzy realizes that the way she sees things is not always the way they are.
Inspired by the legend of the "miraculous" staircase in the Chapel of Loretto in Santa Fe, Ann Rinaldi skillfully blends the mystery surrounding the staircase's builder with the daily trials of a spunky thirteen-year-old girl growing up in the 1870s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780152167882
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	06/28/2002
Series:	Great Episodes Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	4.42(w) x 6.94(h) x 0.58(d)
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

ANN RINALDI is an award-winning author best known for bringing history vividly to life. She has received numerous starred reviews and awards, as well as widespread recognition for her historical novels. Ms. Rinaldi lives in central New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

"Rinaldi delivers another winning historical novel."—Publishers Weekly
"Engrossing. . . . Thrumming with mini-adventures and vivid characters."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Rinaldi (The Coffin Quilt) delivers another winning historical novel, this time turning to New Mexico in the 1870s. After her mother dies on the Santa Fe Trail, 13-year-old Lizzy Enders is deposited by her father in a Santa Fe convent school--without even saying good-bye. Pragmatic Lizzy, who is Methodist, chafes at the hypocrisy and injustice she observes: "To have pride was a sin. Humility was everything, though all the girls preened and boasted and glowed when they got praise from the nuns." She is also baffled at the convent's conundrum: the nuns are praying to Saint Joseph for help finishing their newly constructed chapel, which lacks a staircase to the choir loft; Lizzy simply finds a carpenter, the disheveled vagrant Jose. "Saint Joseph will think we have no faith in him!" one of the girls angrily tells Lizzy. The dynamics among the girls seem reductive, especially the tense exchanges between Lizzy and the villainously manipulative Elinora, whose evil deeds include poking out Lizzy's kitten's eyes with an embroidery needle. Fortunately, the highly charged description of the Wild West town (and a subplot involving Jesse James) and Lizzy's relationships with the adult characters prove colorful and lively. An endnote explaining the enduring mystery of the chapel staircase will leave readers pleasantly intrigued. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, November, 2000: Rinaldi is a prolific writer of historical novels for YAs. Here she turns to Santa Fe in the l870s for the setting. Her protagonist is a Methodist girl, Lizzy, who is deposited at a convent school by her grieving father, a widower, as he goes off to seek his fortune in the Colorado silver mines. Her reaction to the Catholic rituals is humorous: "The incense gave me a headache. The mumblings of the priest sounded like Indian chanting. All they needed were some drums..." In the school are wonderful people and ghastly ones too—especially Elinora, the niece of the local bishop, who is a narcissistic teenager, sometimes insisting that she is called to be a nun, and other times running off to be with a boy she thinks she may marry. Elinora is Lizzy's nemesis, and most of the plot pits one against the other. Rinaldi captures the setting well, basing her story on a famous legend in Santa Fe about a mysterious carpenter who came to build a staircase in the Chapel of Loretto in l878. She introduces this man into her plot as someone Lizzy invites in for shelter just as Elinora is organizing a plan to ask St. Joseph to come and construct a staircase for them in time for the Feast of St. Joseph. The bishop, Elinora's uncle, is a wise man, compassionate and understanding. So are many of the nuns and others at the convent. All in all, this adds up to a school story, with feuding girls, in an interesting time and place. The fact that it takes on some aspects of a miracle tale, especially as it is mixed with humor, only increases its appeal as an entertaining story. KLIATT Codes: J—Recommended for junior high school students. 2000,Harcourt, 230p. bibliog.,
— Claire Rosser

KLIATT

Ages 12 and older will find The Staircase refreshingly different: it tells of Lizzy, whose father has left her at a girls' school run by nuns on his way to new eXxploration in the West. Methodist Lizzy doesn't understand the Catholic nuns or the girls in the school; but when she befriends a poor carpenter and fights for his rights, she begins to see new potentials in her life.

Set in 1878, Rinaldi's latest work of historical fiction is at once enlightening and highly engrossing. After the untimely death of her mother, Lizzy's father leaves her in Santa Fe at a convent school. With a healthy sense of irony, Lizzy often finds the convent ways absurd. While many of the girls seek visions of the Virgin Mary, Lizzy is a nonbeliever and without affectation. The girls ostracize her, so she finds friendship with an odd assortment of people, including a homeless, old carpenter in need of food and shelter. Lizzy convinces the Bishop to hire the carpenter to build a badly needed staircase for the new choir loft. The other students resent the carpenter, however, as they await the appearance of a staircase through a miracle of St. Joseph. As the wait lengthens and tempers flare, Lizzy's roommate and nemesis cruelly blinds Lizzy's kitten. The carpenter offers many words of gentle comfort to Lizzy and soothes her wounded kitten. The carpenter is finally permitted to finish his work, and the kitten, against odds, regains its sight. The entire town is awestruck by the incomparable beauty of the spiral staircase, but the carpenter vanishes without even collecting his pay. Lizzy is never converted to Catholicism, but she and the reader are left to ponder the nature of miracles and human kindness. It is a pleasure to accompany Lizzy throughout this tale thrumming with mini-adventures and vivid characters. (author's note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Root, Phyllis ALL FOR THE NEWBORN BABY Illus. by Nicola Bayley Candlewick (40 pp.) Oct. 2000

Kirkus Reviews