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A Nest for Celeste: A Story About Art, Inspiration, and the Meaning of Home |  | Author: Henry Cole
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $5.70
as of 9/8/2010 02:31 MDT details
You Save: $11.29 (66%)
New (35) Used (10) from $5.51
Seller: READERS
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 30372
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061704105
EAN: 9780061704109
ASIN: 0061704105
Publication Date: March 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780061704109 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2010: Celeste is not your average mouse. She lives alone, quietly weaving baskets with creative flair under the floor boards of the Oakley Plantation. However, Celeste’s world turns upside down with the arrival of the great naturalist John James Audubon and his assistant Joseph, who have come to study and paint the birds of the Louisiana bayou. Their arrival coincides with Celeste’s sudden displacement from her home below to a guest room upstairs. There she watches young Joseph struggle to create the backgrounds for Audubon’s bird paintings. As the two homesick souls strike up a friendship, the mouse secretly puts her artistic skills to good use; she simultaneously helps Joseph improve his compositions while aiding the wounded birds that Audubon captures for his studies. Nearly every page of author-illustrator Henry Cole's fine novel combines text and remarkable drawn images to tell the story of a mouse in need of a home of her own from the tiny creature's unique vantage point. Henry Cole’s A Nest for Celeste is a perfect choice for middle readers who enjoy animal adventure tales with a twist. --Lauren Nemroff
Product Description
A beautifully illustrated novel about a mouse, her friendship with Audubon's apprentice, and her search for home. Beneath the crackled and faded painting of a horse, underneath the worn and dusty floorboards of the dining room, lives Celeste, a mouse who spends her days weaving baskets, until one day she is thrust into the world above. Here Celeste encounters danger—and love—unlike any she's ever imagined. She dodges a hungry cat and witnesses the brutality of hunting for the first time. She makes friends with a singing thrush named Cornelius, a talkative osprey named Lafayette, and Joseph, Audubon's young apprentice. All the while, Celeste is looking for a new home. Is her home in the toe of a worn boot? Nestled in Joseph's pocket? Or in the dollhouse in the attic, complete with mouse-size furniture perfect for Celeste? In the end, Celeste discovers that home is really the place deep inside her heart, where friendships live.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Great book June 21, 2010
Patricia Ackerman (North Riverside, IL USA)
My daughter really wanted this book and I was so glad to be able to order it thru Amazon. She loved the story and pictures. She read it pretty quickly because she loves stories about animals and this one kept moving. She is 11 and just finished 5th grade and it kept her interest. I recommend this book.
The reader will not soon forget little Celeste and her many adventures June 14, 2010
Kidsreads.com (New York, NY)
Celeste, a recently orphaned young mouse, lives under the floorboards in the dining room at the Pirrie plantation home near New Orleans. She watches and waits patiently until the coast is clear --- neither person nor animal within sight, sound, or smell --- and then she ventures onto the dining room floor to pick up crumbs and bits of food. Whether it is a scrap of bacon, a bit of biscuit, or a prized piecrust crumb, Celeste quickly gathers them all, places them in her tiny handwoven basket and scampers back to safety. Once again she has avoided the furtive cat, the huge dog and the humans. But two big bullying rats nip at her and steal most of her food. Life in the big house may be one of luxury for the human residents, but survival is a daily struggle for tiny Celeste.
Famous wildlife artist Audubon and his young assistant, Joseph, are temporarily living on the plantation. Audubon hunts birds, which he often kills so that he can pose them to appear as lifelike models for his many sketches and paintings. What a cruel thing to do to such lovely creatures, but this was nearly two centuries ago and things were done much differently then. Joseph sketches and paints much of the botanical background for his teacher. He realizes he has a great opportunity to learn from Audubon, but the young lad is quite homesick and lonely.
Because the cat discovered Celeste's hiding place, Celeste is once again on the move and seeking safety. She finds refuge upstairs in the toe of Joseph's boot. When Joseph discovers the little mouse, they quickly become friends. Now Celeste has a safe spot in his shirt pocket and a bird's-eye view of her surroundings. Still, life is hardly idyllic at Pirrie Plantation. Joseph is winged in the head during a hunting accident and is increasingly upset by the hunting of birds, which he believes is a cruel way to locate lifelike models. Celeste encounters a wood thrush named Cornelius, caged for Audubon's study. While hunting the very hungry Cornelius some dogwood berries, Celeste gets lost and is swept far away from home during a dreadful storm. Rescue finally arrives in the form of a very talkative osprey named Lafayette. Celeste returns home and frees Cornelius from his cage, who promptly flies away.
Once again the menacing cat locates Celeste, and frantically she climbs the tall staircase --- no easy task for a tiny mouse --- and finds herself in a musty, dusty attic. There she discovers a real treasure: a fully furnished dollhouse with mouse-sized furniture. Now she feels at home, but misses being near Joseph. As the story continues, the diminutive mouse learns much more about freedom, friendship and a place called home.
This unusual piece of historical fiction comes alive through author Henry Cole's carefully chosen words and charming pencil artwork. The reader will not soon forget little Celeste and her many adventures.
a new classic of mouse fiction June 3, 2010
M. Tanenbaum (Claremont, CA USA)
I have wondered for a long time about the relationship between mice and children's books. Few people like the little critters in real life, unless as fodder for science experiments, yet mice are the heroes of more children's books than you can shake a piece of cheese at. I wouldn't be surprised if someone has written a graduate thesis on this topic.
In A Nest for Celeste, Celeste joins a pantheon of unforgettable mice heroes and heroines in both children's novels and picture books. Anyone who loves children's books knows Henry Cole as an immensely talented and versatile illustrator. As he says on his website, "From wombats and weasels to feathers and felines, Henry Cole has been busy as a beaver illustrating books for all ages." In fact, he has illustrated 70 books in his career, including another heroic mouse tale, Livingstone Mouse, penned by Pamela Duncan Edwards. Several of his picture books were written as well as illustrated by Cole, but A Nest for Celeste is his first foray into writing and illustrating a chapter book.
This is no ordinary chapter book, however. The delicately shaded black-and-white pencil illustrations are integral to the story, in much the same way as the illustrations in Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret advance the plot of that novel. Cole uses many different visual perspectives, often letting us into the scene from the perspective of the tiny mouse. In other words, don't get this one on audiobook! Our small heroine, Celeste, lives on a plantation near New Orleans. She is, not surprisingly, no ordinary mouse. Among other talents are her ability to weave baskets out of the native grasses of Louisiana, which she uses to gather food left underneath the dining room table of the family that lives in the plantation house. It's 1821, and the house has some special visitors: James Audubon and his young apprentice, Joseph, who are drawing and painting the local birds and wildlife. Celeste is lonely until she makes the acquaintance of the friendly Joseph, who likes to carry around Celeste in his shirt pocket, affectionately dubs her "Little One" and feeds her peanuts.
Celeste's bravery is tested many times in this book, not only by the housecat, always ready to attack, or the rats who bully her into giving them her food, or a terrible thunderstorm. Nowhere is really safe for the little creature, and she is forced to relocate her nest several times in the course of the story, finally making her home in a dollhouse filled with mouse-sized furniture that she finds in the attic.
But before she knows it, it's time for her new friend Joseph to leave. Celeste is a very philosophical mouse. Cole writes:
"She pondered: Was it worth the feelings of sadness and melancholy to make a friend and then lose him? Would she rather not have the heartache of losing a friend and not have the memory of friendship? No, she decided, no."
But as we learn from the title, this is not just a story about friendship and the meaning of home; Cole also teaches us about art and inspiration by his exploration of how Audubon created his famous artwork. Modern readers will undoubtedly be shocked by his techniques: nearly all the birds he painted were shot and killed first, then posed using wire to recreate a lifelike pose. While some children may be disturbed by this, I appreciate that Cole chose to portray Audubon's work in an historically accurate way. The author also provides a useful afterword with additional facts about Audubon, his assistant, and the time they spent on the Oakley Plantation in 1821. He also includes a copy of Audubon's painting of an osprey or sea hawk, a bird who figures in the story as a friend of Celeste (a rather unusual friend for a mouse, perhaps!)
Darling book May 3, 2010
Sheila Crossley
This book is so special. Not just the sweet story, but the paper it's published on and the wonderful drawings make this book one that a child will want to keep and show their children.
 A literary and visual delight! April 13, 2010
Bibliobabe (Kearney, MO USA)
Those of you who were fans of Robert Lawson growing up will love Cole's novel debute. Like Lawson's Mr. Revere and I and Ben and Me, Cole blends history and fantasy into a story about John James Audubon's time at the Oakley Plantation near New Orleans. The story is about Celeste, a small mouse, who is befriended by the apprentice of Audubon. Joseph Mason is a soft-hearted gentle human who sees Celeste as his muse. He recognizes Celeste as a soul who is also missing "home." The cruel methods Audubon sometime used to create the images of the birds in his famous paintings are countered by Celeste who is able to "show" Mason better ways to capture the beauty of nature. The unlikely friendship between man and mouse benefits both. The combination of deft storytelling and beautiful pencils sketches make this a must-read first novel.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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