Folk Keeper

by Franny Billingsley; Leonid Gore

• ISBN13: 9780689828768
• ISBN10: 0689828764
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Atheneum

Summary

"Here in the Cellar," Corinna says, "I control the Folk. Here, I'm queen of the world." As Folk Keeper at the Rhysbridge Home, she feeds the fierce, dark-dwelling cave Folk; keeps them from souring the milk, killing the chickens, and venting their anger on the neighborhood; and writes it all down in her Folk Record. Since only boys are Folk Keepers, she has disguised herself as a boy, Corin, and it is a boy and a Folk Keeper she intends to stay.Yet there comes a moment when someone else knows the truth. Old, dying Lord Merton not only knows she is a girl, but knows some of her other secrets as well. It is at his bidding that she, as Corin, leaves Rhysbridge to become Folk Keeper and a member of the family on Cliffsend, an isle where the Folk are fiercer than ever they were at Rhysbridge.It is on Cliffsend that Corinna comes face to face with herself, with the powers she does have (some quite unexpected) and those she does not have (even if she lies and says she does). Who really is she? Why does her hair grow two inches a night? Why does the sea draw her? What does she really want? And what future can and will she choose?

Author Biography

Franny Billingsley's books owe their images and rhythms to the songs her father sang -- two songs every night, unless she chose a Scottish ballad with more than thirty verses. Then he'd sing only one song because he was faithful to every word and had four other kids, waiting. Now Franny sings to her own two kids, and she reminds herself of the great gift her father gave her whenever she's tempted to skip a verse.

The Folk Keeper is her second book. Well Wished, her first, was an SLJ Best Book, one of Booklist's Top Ten First Novels for Youth, and an SLJ Sleeper: 100 Books Too Good to Miss. She lives in Chicago with her family and works as a children's bookseller.

Table of Contents

From Candlemas to the Feast of Saint Lancet	1	(11)
From the Day of the Seven Spirits Through Beldstone Day	12	(10)
Cupid's Crossing	22	(13)
Saint Valentine's Eve to the Feast of Saint Valentine	35	(10)
Feast of Saint Valentine Through Mischief of All Sorts	45	(11)
Fastern's Een to the Tids of March	56	(7)
Storms of the Equinox Through Egg Sunday (and Other Matters I'd Rather Not Discuss)	63	(10)
Beltane Through Midsummer	73	(7)
Midsummer Midnight Through Midsummer Dawn	80	(13)
Including Balymas Day (the Feast of the Keeperls Tomorrow!)	93	(9)
The Feast of the Keeper, but What Is It to Me?	102	(13)
Including the Feast of Dolores, the Skeptic (and Other Feast Days I Do Not Care to Name)	115	(10)
Harvest Rose Festival to the Harvest Fair	125	(7)
The Harvest Fair	132	(11)
The Harvest Fair (Will It Never End!) Through the Storms of the Equinox	143	(13)
A New First Page	156