Plain Kate
Published: August 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0545166652
Please consider supporting your local independent bookstore or library. My local indie, Words Worth Books, can hook you up with signed copies. Ask them!
Plain Kate is published in the United Kingdom as Wood Angel through Chicken House Books.
A long time ago, in a market town by a looping river, there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate.
Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver's daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden charms are so fine that some even call her "witch-blade" -- a dangerous nickname in a town where witches are hunted and burned in the square.
For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate's father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate.
Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he'll give Kate the means to escape the town that sems set to burn her, and what's more, he'll grant her heart's wish. It's a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes that she can't live shadowless forever -- and that Linay's designs are darker than she ever dreamed.
Awards
Winner: TD Canadian Children's Literature Award
Winter: 2010-2011 Kids' Indie Next List
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults 2011
Kirkus Best Books of 2010
JLG Selection
Shortlisted for a Cybil, a CBC Reader's Choice Award, a Sunburst Award, and several more.
Reviewers say:
“[Plain Kate] is gorgeously well written, unafraid of plumbing joy and sorrow, and with a story that you can’t bear to stop reading.”
The Times (London)
"Plain Kate, [Bow’s] first young adult novel, demonstrates a mature, haunting artistry... The plot unfolds with the swiftness and dramatic urgency of an adventure tale, yet each event has a measured gravity.... [An] outstanding novel."
New York Times
Authors say:
"Plain Kate is anything but plain. Full of poetry, magic, humor, sorrow, and joy -- and featuring possibly the most delightful talking cat in children's literature. A wonderful book."
Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now
The story is tense, beautiful, bleak, heart-rending, and unforgettable. Have a box of tissues close by! Five stars.
Tamora Pierce
If I were in charge of the Printz Awards, I would have found my winner this weekend.... What a mysterious, horrifying, sweet, sad, romantic, haunting, funny book, filled with poetry and magic
Karen Cushman,
author of Catherine Called Birdy, The Midwife's Apprentice
Finished PLAIN KATE by Erin Bow, am staggered by it. Beautiful in every way: gorgeous writing, imagination, storytelling, heart, heartbreak."
Laini Taylor,
author of Daughter of Smoke and Bone