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The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (Vintage Contemporaries)
The Boy with the CuckooClock Heart - Vintage Contemporaries Author:Mathias Malzieu FIRSTLY: don?t touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. SECONDLY: master your anger. THIRDLY: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more. — Edinburgh, 1874. Born with a frozen heart, Jack is near death when his mother abandons him to the care ... more »of Dr. Madeleine?witch doctor, midwife, protector of orphans?who saves Jack by placing a cuckoo clock in his chest. And it is in her orphanage that Jack grows up among tear-filled flasks, eggs containing memories, and a man with a musical spine.
As Jack gets older, Dr. Madeleine warns him that his heart is too fragile for strong emotions: he must never, ever fall in love. And, of course, this is exactly what he does: on his tenth birthday and with head-over-heels abandon. The object of his ardor is Miss Acacia?a bespectacled young street performer with a soul-stirring voice. But now Jack?s life is doubly at risk?his heart is in danger and so is his safety after he injures the school bully in a fight for the affections of the beautiful singer.
Now begins a journey of escape and pursuit, from Edinburgh to Paris to Miss Acacia?s home in Andalusia. Mathias Malzieu?s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical, wildly inventive tale of love and heartbreak?by turns poignant and funny?in which Jack finally learns the great joys, and ultimately the greater costs, of owning a fully formed heart.