Embrace possibility in this luminous novel about a girl in search of
her past who discovers a secret rooftop world in Paris.
Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other
recorded female survivors from the shipwreck that left baby Sophie
floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers
seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost
impossible that her mother is still alive--but "almost impossible" means
"still possible." And you should never ignore a possible.
So when the Welfare Agency writes to her guardian, threatening to send
Sophie to an orphanage, she takes matters into her own hands and flees
to Paris to look for her mother, starting with the only clue she has--
the address of the cello maker.
Evading the French authorities, she meets Matteo and his network of
rooftoppers--urchins who live in the hidden spaces above the city.
Together they scour the city in a search for Sophie's mother--but can
they find her before Sophie is caught and sent back to London? Or, more
importantly, before she loses hope?
Phillip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series, calls
Rooftoppers "the work of a writer with an utterly distinctive voice
and a wild imagination."