Music for Tigers
Michelle Kadarusman
Type:
Fiction
Categories:
Animals | Performing Arts | Social Issues | People & Places | Nature & the Natural World | Science & Nature
Themes:
Jungle Animals, Music, Adolescence, Australia & Oceania, Environment
Language:
English
Publisher:
Grade Level:
4-7
Age Range:
8-12
Description
Kadarusman’s award-nominated Tasmanian conservation story with four starred reviews, now in a quality paperback edition
From Governor General’s Literary Award finalist Michelle Kadarusman comes a novel about a young violinist who discovers her mother’s family secretly harbor a sanctuary for extinct Tasmanian tigers in the remote Australian rainforest
Shipped halfway around the world to spend the summer with her mom’s eccentric Australian relatives, middle schooler and passionate violinist Louisa is prepared to be resentful. But life at the family’s remote camp in the Tasmanian rainforest is intriguing, to say the least. There are pig-footed bandicoots, scary spiders, weird noises and odors in the night, and a quirky boy named Colin who cooks the most amazing meals. Not the least strange is her Uncle Ruff, with his unusual pet and veiled hints about something named Convict Rock.
Finally, Louisa learns the truth: Convict Rock is a sanctuary established by her great-grandmother Eleanor—a sanctuary for Tasmanian tigers, Australia’s huge marsupials that were famously hunted into extinction almost a hundred years ago. Or so the world believes. Hidden in the rainforest at Convict Rock, one tiger remains. But now the sanctuary is threatened by a mining operation, and the last Tasmanian tiger must be lured deeper into the forest. The problem is, not since her great-grandmother has a member of the family been able to earn the shy tigers’ trust.
As the summer progresses, Louisa forges unexpected connections with Colin, with the forest, and—through Eleanor’s journal—with her great-grandmother. She begins to suspect the key to saving the tiger is her very own music. But will her plan work? Or will the enigmatic Tasmanian tiger disappear once again, this time forever?
A moving coming-of-age story wrapped up in the moss, leaves, and blue gums of the Tasmanian rainforest where, hidden under giant ferns, crouches its most beloved, and lost, creature.
Contributors
Formats
Bibliovideo
Awards
White Raven SelectionNominated
Washington Post KidsPost Summer Book Club selectionCommended
Quill & Quire Books of the Year Honourable MentionCommended
Lectio Book AwardNominated
OLA Best Bets ListNominated
Northern Lights Book Awards: Middle-Grade Cultural CategoryWinner
Rocky Mountain Book AwardRunner-up
USBBY Outstanding International BookCommended
A CBC Books "The best Canadian YA and middle-grade books of 2020" selectionCommended
Cypress Fairbanks ISD Horned Toad TalesShort-listed
Junior Library Guild selectionCommended
Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Books of the YearCommended
CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens selectionCommended
Green Earth Book AwardLong-listed
Nevada Young Readers’ AwardNominated
Forest of Reading Silver Birch Fiction AwardShort-listed
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