Already being proclaimed a classic in children’s literature and compared to the likes of Roald Dahl and Eva Ibbotson, Katherine Rundell’s Rooftoppers merges fantasy and historical fiction with sophisticated lyrical prose and vivid imagery that will delight middle grade readers, tweens, teens, and parents and teachers alike.

I do, I’m afraid, understand books far more readily than I understand people. Books are so easy to get along with.”

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Cello music plays a pivotal role in Rooftoppers. The cello is a string instrument played with a bow. It has four strings tuned to perfect fifths. It is an octave lower than a viola, and an octave and a fifth lower than a violin. The name "cello" is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone".

Books Jacqueline Wilson: 'David Walliams's books are not what I would have wanted as a child' Read MoreAt the start of the novel, she resists Miss Eliot's ideas about how young Victorian girls should behave. We have 5 read-alikes for Rooftoppers, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member. She disliked Sophie’s watching, listening face. “It’s not natural, in a little girl!” She hated their joint habit of writing each other notes on the wallpaper in the hall. Your Ks2 class will read all the extracts we have taken to decide what we can learn about Miss Eliot, her mindset and viewpoints. Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, set in the 19th century, begins after the sinking of a transatlantic ocean liner. A baby girl is found floating alone in a cello case. A man pulls her from the water. He is Charles Maxim, an eccentric scholar, who adopts the girl and names her Sophie. Precocious Sophie grows up in London as Charles's ward. She enters her adolescence polite, good-hearted, bookish and as eccentric as Charles. She spends her time reading books, climbing trees, and wearing outlandish clothing. Sophie and Charles seem perfectly united, but they diverge on one big issue: Sophie's mother. Charles believes that she was a passenger on the ship who died during its sinking. Sophie, however, is determined that not only did her mother not die, but she was a cellist in the ship's orchestra. Sophie pines for her mother, and determines to find her one day, even in the face of Charles's (and the world's) insistence that she is not alive and thus, cannot be found.