Set in 1908, the story opens with two Viennese servants, Ellie and Sigrid, who on their day off discover a baby girl left behind in a church of the alpine village of Pettelsdorf. With the infant is a note asking her to be taken to a nunnery in Vienna. When Ellie and Sigrid find that the nunnery is in quarantine for typhus, they decide to take the baby home and raise her as their own. They name her Annika after Ellie's mother. When the three house master professors decide not to give away her after the typhus quarantine is over, Annika grows up as a servant in the house where Ellie and Sigrid work. For Annika, life in Vienna is perfect. She has friends, Pauline and Stefan, and she loves her adopted family (Ellie and Sigrid, and the three professors who they all work for) very much. Annika is asked by Loremarie Egghart, a snobby rich girl whom Annika despises, to read to her great-aunt. Annika does so and the two (Annika and Loremarie's great aunt) become friends, telling each other about their lives. Loremarie's great aunt was a famous theatre personality who went by the stage name La Rondine. They become so close that the great-aunt leaves Annika her jewels when she dies, having been told that the jewels are pastings of the real ones which she had sold through a jeweller. Annika is delighted but sometimes wonders about the missing piece of the puzzle: the mystery of her real mother and why she was abandoned. When the beautiful, rich Frau von Tannenburg comes to the professors household and announces she is Annika’s long lost mother, Annika is delighted. Her mother takes her to Spittal, the family's estate in Germany, and she meets her brother Hermann, her uncle Oswald, and her cousin Gudrun, but she doesn’t enjoy it. The mansion is derelict and gloomy, the walls are crumbling, and the paint peeling. She meets a friendly Romany/gypsy boy called Zed who works on the farm and cares for Hermann's horse Rocco. Annika's mother asks her to sign some important documents without really explaining them, and then goes to Zurich. Annika has actually signed over La Rondine's jewels, including her famous Star of Kazan, but is unaware of what she has done. When her mother comes back, she says a relative died and left them lots of money, but in fact she sold some of Annika's jewels so Hermann can go to the army school that he wants to attend, and Annika can have galoshes, which her mother buys a size too small. One day while Annika is walking with Zed she discovers some remnants of La Rondine's trunk in the lake. Yet there is no sign of the jewels. Upon asking Frau Edeltraut of the trunk's mysterious appearance her mother retorts that Zed must have stolen it. With the fear of arrest Zed flees Spitall with Rocco and arrives in Vienna to tell the professors his suspicions about Annika's mother. Annika is then sent away to a very harsh boarding school for young ladies called Grossenfluss, but the professors and Ellie and Stefan manage to rescue her after discovering that a pupil died there. (The pupil died by committing suicide but the police were not allowed to investigate and were told that it was an accident.) Annika manages to escape back home to Vienna, to those she loves. Frau von Tannenburg however hears of the incident at Grossenfluss and visits Vienna to collect Annika. Pauline upset from the proceedings decides to spend her time on her hobby of collecting news articles of heroic deeds but spots a piece stating that the lawyer who signed Frau Edeltraut's birth certificate for Annika was imprisoned. This spurs Pauline to visit the midwife in Pettelsdorf, only to discover that the women had a stroke twenty years beforehand and can only sign her name. With this knowledge Pauline returns to Vienna and informs the rest of the forgery of the birth certificate. Unfortunately at this moment Annika is already on the boat with her mother with it due to set off on its voyage. Fortunately Herr Egghart has arrived on his motor car and they speed of to the river Danube. They manage to alert Annika and inform her that Edeltraut is not her mother. Annika instantly acknowledges this and jumps into the river. With Edeltraut discredited, Annika splits the wealth of the jewel sales with the Eggharts and proceeds to live a content life with her friends, Zed and the professors and Sigrid and Ellie, who she now recognises as her mother.
In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat and whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . . . Eva Ibbotson’s hugely entertaining story is a timeless classic for readers young and old.This book is so nice
Author : Eva Ibbotson, Language : English, Studio : Macmillan Children's Books, Length : 400, Publisher : Pan Macmillan Children's Books, Published on : 02-May-2008 . It is a very interesting book full of adventures and also creates interest and at the same time it gives knowledge also so i must say that you all should go and grab it .
This is a sweet story. In general I like Eva Ibbotson's books, but honestly, this one really stood out to me. I love how she catches you off guard with details you didn't think mattered. The main character is kind and you can really sympathize to her, and the overall plot is well developed. It's not too hard of a read, and the words flow easily. I really think you should read this book- it's one of my favorites.
param kothari in 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat and whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . . . Eva Ibbotson’s hugely entertaining story is a timeless classic for readers young and old.it was very intresting comic book
in 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat and whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . . . Eva Ibbotson’s hugely entertaining story is a timeless classic for readers young and old.this book i loved it very much ossom excelent
In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat and whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family . .