How to Catch a Falling Star

(The following is another guest blog entry from library patron Ashley N. Please e-mail Jennifer at jensmith@warren.lib.ms.us if you'd like to become a guest blogger too!)

It’s a bird, no..it’s a plane; no…it’s a Star! Read Stardust by Neil Gaiman and join Tristan Thorn as he searches for his Star; a star he promised to his love, Victoria Forester. Tristan's city of Wall has everything a simple country boy could ever want, except adventure! There is a guard posted at the only opening in the wall that separates the city from the forest to the east. Tristan has served as tje guard several times; however, he has often wondered about the world beyond the wall. One night, while confessing his love for Victoria, a star falls from the sky beyond the wall. Victoria agrees to marry Tristan on the condition that he retrieves the star. Tristan figures out how to pass the guard and discovers the magical town of Faerie right before his eyes--though he has never seen the likes of this magical place, Tristan is determined to find his love’s fallen Star. What Tristan does not realize is that his father, Dunstan Thorn, had started a similar journey seventeen years prior to retrieve a gift for his love, Daisy Hempstock. When Tristan finds the Star, he quickly realizes that she will not easily become someone’s gift. Yvaine, the star, tells him how she was knocked out of the sky by something and how she is going to find herself a magic black traveling candle to get her back to her home in the sky. Tristan uses this quest to coax Yvaine into coming with him, with the promise that he will give her his remaining candle if she helps him win over Victoria, and she agrees. What the pair don't know is that there are several people searching for Yvaine, to use her for their own dark purposes. Three witches collectively known as the Lilim, are after her to regain their youth by eating her heart; the living sons of Lord of Stormhold are searching for her because they all want to be the next Lord, and since the current Lord is on his death bed, they try to kill each other while searching for Yvaine. This novel is full of suspense, mystery, and magic, and the characters are very colorful and well written. Stardust won the Alex Award in 2000, given by the American Library Association. In 2007, Stardust was made into a movie; starring: Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Robert De Niro, Michelle Phillips, and narrated by Ian McKellan. This novel was Neil Gaiman’s first solo prose novel.