The Glass Town Game

Valente draws on the writings of Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell Brontë in this fantasy in which the Brontë children, on the brink of returning to a hated boarding school, find themselves caught up in a whirling fantasy world consisting of their own juvenile writings come to life. The imagery of their imaginative games--wars involving Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, the invented countries of Gondal and Angria, and the children's famous wooden soldiers--takes on new life in an extended series of physical puns, which Branwell recognizes as a "marvelously weird, really drawn-out joke." In the world of Glass Town, British and French soldiers are literally limes (for "limeys") and frogs, respectively; a terrifying Magazine Man is made of all manner of printed matter. Valente's fantasy is baroque, effusive, full of lengthy description--and driven by energetic wordplay and wacky invention that keep it bounding along. Sometimes it leans toward The Phantom Tollbooth; sometimes it smacks of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In among the verbal dash and plethora of British cultural references runs a deeper current: "[Branwell] missed his mother so much it sometimes felt as though he were missing his own head," Valente tells us, revealing the emotional foundation for the children's alternate reality. Occasional black-and-white illustrations highlight just how much this world is populated by animate everyday objects (wood, cake, clothing) and, at the same time, emphasize the elegance and stylishness of Valente's "nonsense." A few pages of acknowledgments alert young readers to the author's sources, sending them on to explore Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and more. deirdre f. baker