We all love
Dickens and ought to remember that before his works became literary masterpieces
they were very much pieces of popular fiction and possibly a little frowned
upon by the serious reader: all those unbelievable coincidences, those slightly
larger than life background characters, and all those impossible twists and
turns. But that is what we love about his novels and for that matter the Christmas
pantomime and Shakespeare’s comedies. Of course, Shakespeare also wrote
tragedies and some of Dickens’ novels end on a sad note. Nevertheless, they
both tell a great story.
Should Iva Ibbotson
join those two great writers? Possibly she should. I’ve not been as delighted by
a tale for some time as I have by that of The
Star of Kazan.
We have the twists
and turns, but they are all logical. We don’t have the unlikely coincidences though
there is some high drama. The background characters are a little larger than
life but still believable and completely likeable – even the more wicked ones. We
even have a boarding-school with a harsh regime. Well, there are two, in fact. Does
this mean that Ibbotson is possibly even better than the two masters?
We really can’t
help gunning for the mild-natured Annika, and her adoptive family that includes
the two warm-hearted servants and the three slightly eccentric but talented professors.
We even forgive the money-grabbing Edeltrauts and the stuck-up Eggharts – for after
all Herr Egghart leads the car-chase – with just a pinch of self-interest.
With plenty of colour and a beautifully crafted
setting in old Vienna and a spa town in Germany, this book offers a thoroughly
good read. It’s one that you are at once sad to finish and immensely satisfied
about because of the upbeat ending, where in true Dickens and Shakespeare tradition,
all loose ends are tied up. 
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