Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee (Booktalk)

Ophelia isn't supposed to walk through the museum alone. It's got hundreds and hundreds and rooms: it's huge and chilly and she doesn't know her way around. But her father works there now, and she's curious.

She walks into a little gallery. It's a got a rope blocking it, but she goes under the rope. There are no museum guards in there, and it's very still and quiet.

The room has an empty, peculiar smell. She goes through a closed door, which leads into another little room. It has a faded mural of mountains and a blue sea and a boy with a sword. Above this scene is painted the phrase, "The Marvelous Boy."

If you look closely enough at the painted mural, you'll see a tiny door: it's part of the blue sea in the painting. There's a tiny keyhole there, and Ophelia looks through it.

There is a large blue-green eye looking back at her!

Museums are full of dead things from the past, but this one has a live boy concealed in an obscure room.

And he doesn't know his own name.

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee. 228 p. Knopf: 2014. Booktalk to grades 4-8.