The Star of Kazan

Author – Eva Ibbotson

Publisher – Pan Macmillan

Rating – 5/5

I’ve rediscovered the genre for young readers’ though I must confess thanks to J K Rowling. The simple reading and bits of grandma’s wisdom never fail to impress me.

The delicious aroma of pastries and fish wafting eloquently from the book do nothing to help one remember the time either.

Set in Vienna, this is a simple story of an orphan girl bought up lovingly by two maids – Ellie and Sigrid. A young life filled with joy at the simple pleasures of life. Annika befriends an elderly lady in the neighbourhood. “La Rodine” had led a colourful life in the theatres and bequests her belongings, some stage clothes and fake jewels to her little friend.

Throughout this rather satisfactory life however, Annika has one secret longing – that her mother, preferably a grand lady appear and swipe her off her feet in her embrace. So one day when an aristocrat Lady does appear and claim to be her mother, she does not think twice before committing all her pent up love and loyalty to her mother.  Annika leaves her doting adoptive mothers and leaves with her mother for her new home – the castle Spittal.

What follows is a roller coater ride into the world of the aristocracy. A world more subtle and dubious than Annika has encountered in her young life.

An industrious child, Annika is stuck by how slack things at Spittal are. She befriends the young stable boy who tells her that it was not so under the previous master, her mother’s father.

Of course there is a nefarious plot, a scheming mind, loyal friends, devoted mother and... a young man...  but not always where Annika thought or wanted them to be.

Annika’s gentleman mother puts her into a very strict school for young women, women who Annika discovers are not particularly wanted by their families while her brother gets to join the expensive military school.  Annika still presumes her mother has her best interest at heart.

The stable boy Zed is not so trusting. He rides to Vienna and delivers the news to Ellie and Sigrid. Torn with worry Ellie visits the school and discovers Annika stripped of her joyousness. Annika sees Ellie as if in a dream and fails to recognize her. There follows a heart warming rescue attempt and Annika is restored to her home in Vienna. However her heart is still with the mother she has yearned for since she can remember.

Her longing leads her to discover that her mother has been siphoning her inheritance from ‘La Rodine”, the jewels were real after all. But still Annika’s loyalty to her mother does not alter. It is only on discovering that the honourable Frau  Von Tannenburg is not her mother that Annika is able to look beyond her love for her mother. It is only then that Annika realises that she has been clinging on to the woman she wanted to desperately believe was her mother while her heart knew this not to be true.

The book leaves me one feeling sad – how guileless is a young ones love, how desperate can a child be for her mother. And elated – Ah.... she realises that the woman is not her mother that her real mother is the one who has loved her since she was little, who brought her up and continues to look out for her.