The Hotel Balzaar (The Norendy Tales)
A magical and cleverly woven series, The Norendy Tales currently consists of two distinct titles: The Puppets of Spelhorst (Candlewick 2023) and The Hotel Balzaar. Hopefully, DiCamillo will present us with more to come.
The hotel in The Hotel Balzaar, as expertly described by DiCamillo and robustly illustrated by Sardà, contains many particular attributes which Marta (our young protagonist) examines on a daily basis as she quietly makes her rounds up and down the stairs and all around. There is a lobby where a bellhop and manager engage in their respective duties, while trying not to notice Marta. A particular painting and a particular grandfather clock are also consistent features playing a role in Marta’s hotel life.
Guest rooms occupy the upper floors and Marta’s mother works tirelessly cleaning and tidying for the hotel guests. The attic level is where Marta and her mother share a small room, and where Marta’s mother is constantly telling her she must be as quiet as a mouse all day, so as not to disturb the guests. They have moved here without Marta’s father. He may be physically absent, but his character is larger than life as he is the center of the magic and fantasy that fills the pages.
Once our setting (the hotel) is established, and our characters (Marta, her mother, her MIA father, the bellhop and manager, the painting and the clock) are introduced, Dicamillo wastes no time bringing in the heart and soul of Marta’s yearnings. An old “Countess” arrives one day complete with an ostentatiously red outfit, a walking cane, a “massive” green parrot on her shoulder, and loads and loads of luggage for the bellhop to tend to. Our Countess immediately notices Marta, who is trying hard not to be noticed, and their relationship begins.
The Countess is very old, but she has an affinity for the very young. She has come to the hotel, so she says, to find Marta and tell her stories. She is there to help Marta sort out answers to all of her deepest life questions, including, but not limited to, where her father is and when/if he will return. Marta sneaks quietly to the old Countess’ hotel suite and the first story rings out about the green parrot that used to be a military general until he was cursed by a witch.
Each story, there are seven in total, wobbles beautifully between fantasy and reality. It’s never quite clear to Marta which part is fantasy and which part is reality. Marta struggles to make sense of them, the way she struggles to make sense of her father, her mother, and her family dynamics. As each story unfolds, many coincidences start to look more like deliberate intensions. Reason and coincidence transform into serendipity.
Just when Marta begins to understand what the Countess is trying to explain, the Countess disappears and the final story is left untold, hanging full of suspense in the anguished air. But DiCamillo does not leave us stranded in this limbo space for long. In a brilliant twist of storytelling, DiCamillo completes the seventh story without the Countess’ presence, delivering a masterful, delightful, and extremely satisfying ending.
The Hotel Balzaar uses the Countess for her storytelling prowess, consolidating all stories into her character. The Puppets of Spelhorst, in contrast, integrates a multitude of characters to tell stories. Even with these two different story telling mechanisms, the story within a story pattern is consistent between the two Norendy Tales. Both feature a plot arc stretched out from story to story to story, all culminating in one fell swoop with heartwarming endings. This strategy is extremely tricky to execute, particularly for the short format of middle grade reading material. The ease with which DiCamillo whips out these two editions reinforces why DiCamillo is the supremely successful queen of this genre, and a multiple bestselling-award-winning super-star storyteller.
This is not to say that the illustrators are any less elite. Julie Morstad’s soft and tender gray toned images grace the pages of The Puppets of Spelhorst, matching perfectly the tone and tenor of the imaginative story. Likewise, Sardà (who also illustrated Moving the Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion, reviewed here in June 2023) takes her ingenious style to a whole new level making exactly the right fit for The Hotel Balzaar. Her heavy hitting black and white drawings are full of fun shapes and exotic patterns with rich textures. In both of these books the illustrations are abundant and add intrigue and depth to the telling of the story; both the narrative and the images pull equal weight. Both titles, it’s safe to say, are true reader delights.