Product Description

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

• Amazon Sales Rank: #323633 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780152167882
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
"'This one is wise,' he said.' This one has an old spirit. She has been among us before.'" Though the Arapaho Indian on the trail praised her old spirit, 14-year-old Lizzy Enders feels anything but wise. Within only a few days, she has lost her mother to the fever, been left by her widowed father at a convent, and thrust into the strange world of the Academy of Our Lady of Light in 1870s Santa Fe. Born a Methodist, Lizzy just can't comprehend Catholicism: "All this talk of blood and martyrdom and eating flesh and agony. It was just all too much, is all." In an attempt to alleviate her misery, Lizzy befriends an unemployed elderly carpenter and suggests he be hired to build the missing staircase for the convent's new chapel. The other girls at the academy are furious, since they have been praying for a miracle to complete the stairs, not an old beggar. Can she convince them that this aged man, with his real tools, is better than an ephemeral miracle? What Lizzy has to discover for herself is that sometimes miracles come disguised in nun's habits... or carpenter's sandals.

Based on a legend of a real chapel stairway in Santa Fe, The Staircase is a lively historical fiction that successfully merges myth, religion, and old-fashioned pioneer sensibility. Lizzy's need to make order of her chaotic world and define the unknown are timeless teen traits, making The Staircase a historical novel with real relevance for today's adolescent. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly
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 schoolAwithout 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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 5-7. Legend has it that the beautiful spiral staircase in Santa Fe's Chapel of Loretto was built with miraculous speed by a mysterious carpenter. Around this apparent miracle, Rinaldi spins a melodramatic tale narrated by a resilient, nineteenth-century teenager. After Lizzy's mother dies on the trail to Santa Fe, her father leaves her in a girls' school run by the Sisters of Loretto, where she's forced to room with conniving Elinora. Lizzy, raised Methodist, becomes a despised outsider to the students, but she is befriended by several adults--including a ragged carpenter who appears one day and is hired to build a staircase to the new chapel's choir loft. Rinaldi gives Lizzy plenty of opportunity to comment on the area's distinctive brand of Catholicism as the girl receives wise counsel from adults and faces life-threatening dangers. There are miracles in plenty, too, though not the supernatural sort, with some edging into contrivance: Elinora, for instance, is so villainized (in one typical act, she pokes the eyes of Lizzy's new kitten with a knitting needle) that it's hard to buy the roommates' ultimate reconciliation. Lizzie even forgives her father; at the conclusion, she sets out with her not-blinded-after-all kitten and an orphaned baby to rejoin him. Once again, Rinaldi plays expertly to her audience. Bibliography; afterword. John Peters
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Another great book by Ann Rinaldi.
The year is 1878. Thirteen-year-old Lizzy Enders is torn by grief. After her mother's death on the long journey westward from Missouri, her father has abandoned her at a convent school in Sante Fe, New Mexico. He is determined to prospect for gold in Colorado and regain the family wealth lost in the final days of the Civil War, just before Lizzy's birth. As the only non-Catholic girl at the school, she finds herself an unwelcome outcast, teased and tormented by the other students, especially snooty Elinora, who pretends that she wants to be a nun to avoid suspicion while sneaking out at night to see a boy. Lizzy's only friends are a slightly crazy old woman who lost both her husband and only son to the Civil War, and a travelling carpenter hired to build a staircase at the scool. But even with these two friends, Lizzy still longs for the day her father will return for her, and she wonders if that day will ever come. I highly reccomend this novel to fans of Ann Rinaldi's books. It's another excellant book by her, and she's one of my favorite authors.

Wonderfully classic Ann Rinaldi!
I read my first Ann Rinaldi book when I was 12 years old. I give her credit for my love of history. I continue to read her books, because I know I will get a good story and "Staircase" is no exception. Lizzy Enders is on her way West with her family and their charge, Elinora. When Lizzy's mother dies, life, as she has known it, is over. Elinora is to be taken to a Catholic convent school where her uncle is Bishop. Lizzy expects to leave with her father, but is left behind. There, she learns some hard lessons in life and how to take the good with the bad, with a little help from friends.

Rinaldi, in her classic style has taken an event in history and built a wonderful, captivating story around it. No matter how old I get, as long as she keeps writing, I will be reading. I highly suggest you do the same. If you are have never read her books before, this is a great place to start.

The Packaging of Miracles
Lizzy Enders feels abandoned in Santa Fe when her father and the remainder of their wagon train to Colorado leave in the middle of the night. Though not exactly alone in the convent school, Lizzy is certainly an outsider, the only Methodist and labeled as a heretic by Mother Magdalene. Add to that the fact that her own mother has just died on the Trail and left without a proper burial. Consider also the fact that she is outcast by the other girls in the convent, including her nemesis, Elinora who has traveled the Trail with her from Independence. The Staircase is more than a story about one girl's acceptance and perseverance in a life that is less than charmed, though. It is a story of hoping for miracles, but more importantly of realizing miracles, even when they do not come in the packaging one expected to find them. Heart-warming and based on the story of the Chapel of Loretto's fabled staircase from the late 1870's, another exceptional offering by Rinaldi.