String in the Harp

Relates what happens to three American children, unwillingly transplanted to Wales for one year, when one of them finds an ancient harp-tuning key that takes him back to the time of the great sixth-century bard Taliesin.

A family in mourning...an ancient bard...a harp key that brings them together...

When fifteen-year-old Jen Morgan flies to Wales to spend Christmas with her family, she's not expecting much from the holiday. A year after her mother's sudden death, her father seems preoccupied by the teaching job that has brought him and Jen's younger siblings to Wales for the year. Her brother, Peter, is alternately hostile and sullen,and her sister, Becky, misses Jen terribly.

Then Peter tells Jen he's found a strange artifact, a harp key that shows him pictures from the life of Taliesin, the great bard whose life in sixth-century Wales has been immortalized in legend. At first Jen doesn't believe him, but when the key's existence — and its strange properties — become known to the wider world, the Morgans must act together against a threat to the key...and to their family.

Publishers Weekly

"Readers will brook no interruption once they become immersed in the sustained magic" of this 1977 Newbery Honor Book about a boy who travels back in time to the 1500s, said PW. Ages 10-14. (Mar.)

Nancy Bond is the author of a number of books for young readers, including The Voyage Begun, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book; A Place to Come Back To, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and a Booklist Editor's Choice; and Truth to Tell. She wrote after attending library school in a Welsh town outside of Aberstwyth, the book's setting. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts.