Voice of Youth Advocates

Set in the days when the Magi were gathering to follow the star across the Great Desert, this novel follows the sometimes-perilous adventures of a teenage girl, Mitra, and her five-year-old brother, Babak. Born into a noble house in Persia, these children are all that is left of a family that was once powerful and happy. Mitra wants to be returned to the status she once enjoyed. For now, she and her brother must scrape by as best they can by stealing food while at the same time hiding from the king's men, who are trying to hunt them down and kill them. When Mitra discovers that Babak has a gift for dreaming other people's futures by sleeping with a piece of their clothing, she begins to sell his dreams. The Magus Melchoir has stopped in their town, hears of the boy's gift, and arranges for the boy to be stolen and delivered to him. Mitra chases down and reluctantly joins the entourage. Thus begins their western trek that ends, of course, in Bethlehem. Although the center of the story focuses on Mitra and Babak, the power of Babak's dreams drives the forward motion of the caravan. Each Magus has Babak dream for him, and the dreams are as huge as the night sky, with stars running their course from the beginning to the end of time. The characters are vivid and whole, the plot compelling, and the setting vast. The novel might be confusing to non-Christian readers unfamiliar with the story of the Magi.-Leslie Carter.

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Mitra and her younger brother, Babak, are refugees in ancient Persia, living in a labyrinth of caves, scraping by with the food they can steal in the nearby marketplace. Disguised as a boy for safety and mobility, Mitra dreams of returning to her former life of opulence before her father's plot against a despotic king scattered the family. When it is discovered that Babak possesses the ability of prophetic dreaming, he comes to the attention of a local magus, Melchior, who takes the children under his protection as he travels westward, following signs in the stars. Joined by two more scholars, each with his own gifts, the caravan continues on a harrowing journey that leads them into the Roman territories, and eventually to the tiny village of Bethlehem. While the focus is always on Mitra, readers experience a growing awareness of who these three wise men actually are and what portentous events Babak is dreaming for them. Fletcher explains in detailed author's notes her long-standing fascination with the story of the Magi and provides insight into the research process. A fine weaver of historical fiction, she creates a fully realized world for her characters and builds a plot full of suspense and anguish. Mitra and Babak's plight is that of any children caught between warring factions. Their journey is one of seeking a place of safety to call home, and, for Mitra, it is a coming-of-age quest that leaves her changed forever.-Connie C. Rockman, Stratford Library Association, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

ALA Booklist

In a richly imagined novel, Fletcher dovetails her own characters and plot with an utterly familiar New Testament story. Mitra comes from Persian royalty, but most of her family is dead. Now disguised as a boy, she steals food and shelters in burial caves with her younger brother, Babak. Political enemies of their father pursue them, as does the magus Melchior, who has heard of Babak's gift for dreaming others' dreams. The complications facing a pubescent girl living as a boy and the rhythms of desert life form one intriguing dimension to the novel; another is the journey set in motion when Babak dreams of a portentous star, and the siblings follow Melchior and his two magi companions as they seek the king it represents. Teens will recognize their own longings in proud, headstrong, and passionate Mitra; steer slightly older readers to Anne Provost's In the Shadow of the Ark (2004), another novel about a resilient young woman swept along by biblical events.

Kirkus Reviews

Fletcher's inward-looking tale recreates the arduous journey of the Three Wise Men, as seen by a teenager in double disguise. After three years of hiding from the Persian king's soldiers by pretending to be both a boy and a beggar, Mitra, child of a rebellious noble, is swept up by the Magi along with her little brother Babak, who has begun to experience dreams that actually become reality. Impelled by the strange triple conjunction of two planets in the sky, the priests journey across the harsh desert toward distant Jerusalem. On the way, Mitra's dream of being restored to her previous lofty state runs into one snag after another as Babak's health begins to fail, the hunt for her and her brother comes closer and her efforts to hide her sex are complicated by new, strange feelings for two young men she encounters. Fletcher focuses more on emotional than physical landscapes, pushing the historical setting well into the background; Mitra gets nary a glimpse of the baby Jesus, and though she's able to give advance warning of the slaughter of the innocents, that too is left offstage. Still, by the end she has given over her childhood, along with its fantasies, and found a true home. Absorbing. (author's essay) (Fiction. YA)

Horn Book

Fourteen-year-old thief Mitra and her brother, Babak, join the magus Melchior's caravan bound for Bethlehem, where a child has been born in a stable. Fletcher keeps the scale human, sticking to Mitra's point of view. Written in a natural first-person voice, this well-shaped historical novel brings a new perspective to an ancient story.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This richly imagined novel invents a backstory for the famous Nativity tale of the three wise men—Melchior, Balthazaar and Gaspar—who follow a star in search of the prophesied king. Fletcher (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Shadow Spinner) centers the story on Mitra, a Persian teenager, and her young brother, the fragile, kindhearted Babak. The pair was forced to flee after their father's unsuccessful coup attempt against the reigning monarch, Phraates. Mitra successfully disguises herself as a boy and a beggar—until Babak unwittingly reveals his ability to foretell the future through his dreams. His prophetic visions attract unwanted attention, most perilously from Melchior, an out-of-favor Magus who kidnaps the boy so Babak can dream exclusively for him, despite obvious risks to the boy's health. (He grows weaker with every dream.) There's a bit too much going on—two romances for Mitra, multiple escapes and recaptures, squabbling Magi—and the pace occasionally advances as languidly as a camel journey from Persia to Bethlehem. But Mitra is feisty and honorable, and Fletcher, with lush and often poetic language, somehow ties her many strands together, drawing a subtle parallel between the humble circumstances of the unnamed baby's birth and the empathetic suffering of Babak, a prince in exile. Ages 12-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Sept.)