The Folk Keeper

Overview

This "Boston Globe/Horn Book" fiction award winner tells the story of Corinna, who disguises herself as a boy to work as a folk keeper, one who keeps the fairy folk who live underground at bay. When she is hired to work at the seaside manor of a wealthy family, Corinna comes to believe she has special powers.

Editorial Reviews

In our Best Books of 2001 citation, PW wrote, "Billingsley draws on storytelling traditions yet invents a thoroughly original subterranean world inhabited by menacing creatures called Folk. Hang on for a hair-raising ride." Ages 10-14. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Franny Billingsley

Most kids don ' t like to go to bed, but I did. I was the oldest of five kids, and our house was always filled with shouts and yells and bangs and crashes. Bedtime was a precious private space, away from the bangs and clangs ' bedtime was not a time for sleep! In the top bunk, I could get away from the chaos. I could barricade myself with pillows and spin out one of the magical stories always simmering in my mind. Bedtime was also a time for singing. My dad sang to us every night; each kid got two songs. (Ten songs a night ' that ' s a lot of songs!) We kids were lucky: my dad (a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Chicago) had a lively interest in music (as well as in painting, and acting, and languages). He sang us a lot of American folk songs but was also interested in Scottish ballads. Those ballads, with their melancholy stories and haunting melodies, seeped into my blood; they flavored the stories I wrote inside my head, a new installment every night, night after night. But I never thought I ' d be a writer. In fact, I never thought I ' d be much of anything, because I was such a lousy student. I daydreamed instead of listening to the teachers; I read instead of doing my homework. Reading was the only thing I was any good at. I was rather shy and solitary, but I don ' t think I was lonely. After all, I had a universe of friends inside my head. I was most truly myself outside school, which is perhaps why I loved the year I left the American school system to spend fifth grade in Denmark. Denmark was a fairytale place, home of the great fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen. I read his stories over and over, especially The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid. My memories of that year come to me now as though through a magical lens: the statue of the Little Mermaid rising from the gray waves of the Copenhagen harbor; myself at Christmas, wearing a crown of lighted candles; the Snow Queen ' s palace, present everywhere in the dark afternoons, the drifts of snow, the moon-shot ice. In my late teens, however, I became self-conscious about being the outsider, the oddball, and I began making an effort to fit in. In order to join the crowd, I thought, I had to set aside my nighttime imaginings. And so I did. I had been spinning stories for seventeen years; it took only a moment to stop. I remember that moment vividly, the moment I turned away from magic. I remember my bedroom, the brown carpet, the blue sleeping bag, the deep afternoon shadows. Yes, it was the decision of a moment, but it lasted for years. I spent years pretending to be just like everyone else ' pretending even to myself ' and after college, I went to law school, just like everyone else.

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free eBook Library Software.

Additional Info

Imprint

Atheneum

Filesize

687.37 KB

Number of Pages

176

eBook ISBN

9780689844614

Awards

• American Library Association Notable Books for Children
• Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award
• Garden State Teen Book Award
• Georgia Children's Book Award
• Great Lakes' Great Books Award
• Listen Up Awards
• Maine Student Book Award
• Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year