The Key To Rondo

Synopsis

International best-selling author of Deltora Quest.Shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards 2007.Turn the key three times only.Never turn the key while the music is playing.Never pick up the box while the music is playing.Never close the lid until the music has stopped.The old music box, with its strict rules, has been carefully handed down through Leo's family for hundreds of years. Painted scenes of villages, mysterious forests, a castle on a hill and a queen in a long blue gown decorate its sides. An astounding secret is hidden beneath its gleaming black lid. Now it is Leo's music box, and although he respects the rules, his least favourite cousin, Mimi Langlander, does not. When the rules are broken, Leo's ordered life is changed forever as he and Mimi plunge together into a thrilling quest in the fantastic world of Rondo."The Key To Rondo is a very neatly written distillation of fairytale elements that combine, collapse and reappear like a dream had after an evening spent with the Brothers Grimm, Madame Leprince de Beaumont and Walt Disney. Talking pigs, malevolent ducks and menacing swans bustle through its pages, family mysteries are solved, allies are found and lost, and extravagant evil and deception is punished. Great fun." - Sydney Morning Herald