Kids/YA fantasy from the author of the famous Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh. I thought I'd never read this before, but at chapter 21, it suddenly came rushing back to me... The first half of the book is taken up by Our Young and Suddenly-Orphaned Heroine striking out on her own and fleeing the mysterious bad-guys, and I guess that wasn't terribly memorable to me as a child... but when the spooky evil thought-controlling reform-school comes into the picture - that, I guess, I found memorable.
On her tenth birthday, Ellne wakes up to find a sliver crown on her pillow; a few minutes later her house burns up, her parents disappear, and she is launched on an adventure involving a trek though the woods, a castle full of brainwashed captives, and the powerful Hieronymus Machine which wants her crown.
Good teen fantasy.
Good teen fantasy.
