The Silver Crown - Tapa dura

"It lay beside her on the pillow, shinier than silver, glowing softly, with twinkling blue stones set all around....It did not occur to her to wonder from whom it had come; she was merely aware that it was hers by right." Ellen awakens on her tenth birthday to discover a silver crown on her pillow. She delightedly wears her strange new crown to the park that morning, but when she returns she is horrified to find that her house has burned down and her family has disappeared. Dazed, Ellen knows she must somehow reach Aunt Sarah's house, but the only way to get there is to travel over the unforgiving mountains on foot. Her journey turns treacherous when she and her travel companion, Otto, stumble across an ominous castle where evil rules and everyone who enters falls prey to the darkness within. Everyone, that is, except Ellen. She alone must conquer this mysterious force -- but how? In this gripping and memorable fantasy, Robert C. O'Brien, acclaimed author of the Newbery Medal-winning Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, creates a world where good and evil are locked in battle and the balance between the two can only be restored by one young girl's determination to set things right.

In real life, Robert C. O'Brien was Robert Leslie Conly. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, attended Williams College and graduated from the University of Rochester. He studied piano at the Eastman School of Music, and at one time considered becoming a musician. Instead, he became a writer and editor for such magazines as Newsweek and National Geographic. He lived in New York City and then in Washington, D.C., and he and his wife had one son and three daughters. His other books for young readers include the Newbery Medal winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which was the basis for the animated film The Secret of NIMH, and Z for Zachariah, which was completed by his wife and daughter with the help of his notes after his death in 1973.