The Cabinet of Wonders

Marie Rutkoski

Aug 2008 · The Kronos Chronicles Book 1 · Macmillan + ORM

About this ebook

Marie Rutkoski's startling debut novel, the first book in the Kronos Chronicles, about the risks we take to protect those we love, brims with magic, political intrigue, and heroism.

Petra Kronos has a simple, happy life. But it's never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world's finest astronomical clock. Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home – blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn't know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father's eyes back. Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father's clock has powers capable of destroying their world.

The Cabinet of Wonders is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Ratings and reviews

Actually, I'd give this book 3 & 1/2 stars because I like the story line and creativity on the author's part, but if only the author had used more description, she would've made this book AT LEAST a 4 & 1/2. She has an abundance of basic sentences with beginnings like "then" and "soon", but if those were changed, the book would instantly level up by at least one star.

I loved this book mutch because it is so creative and fun and petra is so clever and adventurous.:-)

We she puts realizing into fairytales it is amazing most likely faverte book of all time

About the author

Marie Rutkoski is the author of The Kronos Chronicles. The Cabinet of Wonders was her debut novel and was named an Indie Next Kids' List Great Read and a Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, among other honors. Rutkoski grew up in Bolingbrook, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago), as the oldest of four children. She attended the University of Iowa, where she took Writers' Workshop classes and studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner James Alan McPherson. After graduating, she lived in Moscow and Prague. Upon receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University, she held dual appointments as a lecturer there in both English and American Literature and Language, and History and Literature. Rutkoski is currently a professor at Brooklyn College, where she teaches Renaissance Drama, children's literature and creative writing. She lives in New York City.