Spellbinding Stories

TFK Kid Reporter Milo Bhushan read The Hotel Balzaar and interviewed Kate DiCamillo, its author. Read Milo’s thoughts below.

Every night, Marta Buchelli goes to sleep in the attic of the once-grand Hotel Balzaar. Her mother is a maid there, and she often reminds Marta to be invisible to the guests. Being invisible works for Marta. She spends her days in the hotel lobby. She quietly looks at paintings and wonders if she’ll ever see her father again. He’s a soldier who has gone missing.

One day, a mysterious woman arrives at the hotel, claiming to be a countess. She befriends Marta and introduces her to Blitzkoff the parrot—who, as Marta later finds out, used to be human. The countess shares enthralling stories with Marta. Soon, Marta starts to feel that these stories connect to her life. She wonders if they have anything to do with her father’s disappearance.

The Hotel Balzaar is the second book in Kate DiCamillo’s Norendy Tales series. The book has a wonderfully gloomy setting and mood, but DiCamillo makes sure that warmth and hope shine through. As a reader and a writer, DiCamillo says she is “always looking for that balance between dark and light.”

“We can’t deny that things are hard and sometimes scary,” she told TFK. “But at the same time, there is always so much love and light.”

The Hotel Balzaar is a serious book, but not a scary one. There’s no shortage of plot twists or memorable characters. If you like looking for hidden connections in books, or if you want a classic feel-good story with a twist, The Hotel Balzaar is a great book for you.