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In this "engaging modern-day fairy tale" (Kirkus Reviews), Whose Beauty is Past Change tells the coming of age story story of Lissa, a young girl who journeys through beautiful distractions to find herself, and her future in a fantastic undersea realm.
While visiting Key West, Florida, with her father (a professor of poetry), Lissa falls into the Gulf while watching a beautiful sunset. Unable to return to the surface, she learns she has been called to follow a golden path to the undersea realm where sunsets are painted.
To guide her along the path, she encounters the charming creatures of the reef: dazzling Glam-Mer, the clownfish; wise Pri-Mer, the sea-turtle; ponderous Boo-Mer, the manatee; giddy Skim-Mer, the dolphin, and cantankerous and creative Glim-Mer, the giant oyster.
Finally, Lissa reaches Kwest, the luminous undersea realm where sunsets are painted. Using what she has learned of art and poetry from her parents, she proves she belongs in Kwest. There she is offered a choice: to return to the surface or remain forever as a painter of sunsets.
Intended to inspire and encourage young poets and artists, the book quotes major poets such as E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake, Wallace Stevens, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John Keats.
For advanced middle-grade and YA readers.
Publishers Note: This book was previously published under the title Painting Sunsets.
Author's Dedication:
I was not healthy as a child, asthma that kept me indoors for weeks, whole months of school missed, severe bouts of pneumonia. During these, according to my father, there were times when he did not think I would make it. I don't remember that.
But I do remember my mother sitting with me, night after night, as I struggled to breathe, vaporizer on full blast, cooling my fever and reading to me to keep me calm and entertained. Most clearly I remember her reading Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, doing all the voices. I still hear her voice when I read them. And I still read them to hear her voice.
This book is dedicated to her.
