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• Rooftoppers was written by Katherine Rundell and published in 2013. It is set in the Victorian period.

• The story is about a girl called Sophie who was found floating in an empty cello case after a shipwreck.

• Growing up with her guardian, Charles, Sophie is convinced that her mother is still alive and sets out to find her.

• Sophie’s search takes her to the rooftops of Paris where she learns about identity, hope and courage.

After a ship sinks, a baby is found floating in a cello case and is rescued by Charles Maxim, another passenger from the ship. Charles names the baby Sophie and decides to raise her.

When Sophie is 12, the National Childcare Agency decide that Charles is not raising her properly and arrange to send Sophie to an orphanage. Sophie finds a Paris address inside her cello case, which she believes belonged to her mother. She and Charles decide to go to Paris to escape the authorities and find her mother.

In Paris, Sophie and Charles visit the address they found in the cello case. They find out that it was owned by a woman called Vivienne Vert.

Sophie meets a boy called Matteo. Matteo is also an orphan and lives on the rooftops to avoid being found. He agrees to help Sophie in her search.

Charles and Sophie go to the police station to find out if Vivienne was on the records of the sinking ship. The police refuse to let them see the ship’s records, which makes Charles and Sophie suspicious.

Matteo and some other rooftop children help Sophie to break into the police files. They find out that all the ship's musicians were recorded as being men. However, one of the musicians, called George Green, looks very similar to Sophie and is wearing a woman's shirt in a photograph.

In the Victorian period, women wouldn’t have been allowed to work as musicians, so Sophie’s mother must have disguised herself as a man so that she could work. The ship’s records contain an address for ‘George’.

After a dangerous encounter with a group of violent Rooftoppers called the gariers, Sophie and Matteo are joined by Charles. The three visit George’s address, unsure what they will find.

On the rooftop, a woman is playing a cello. She is clearly Sophie’s mother, as they both have the same unusual hair colour, and the two are reunited.

Activity

Sophie

Sophie has a strong sense of her own identity. She has "hair the colour of lightning", chooses to wear trousers instead of skirts, climbs trees and plays the cello.

Sophie is brave, strong and determined to find her mother.

Charles Maxim

Charles is clever and unusual. For instance, he and Sophie use books instead of plates, and he let Sophie sleep on the top of her wardrobe when she was young.

Charles doesn’t think that it’s important for Sophie to behave like other young Victorian girls. He thinks it is more important for Sophie to be happy.

He supports Sophie's search for her mother and his motto is:

never ignore a possible.

Matteo

Matteo is independent and brave. He is afraid of losing his freedom and being taken into an orphanage so he refuses to come down from the rooftops.

He is very knowledgeable about the city of Paris and its people.

Although he appears tough, Matteo is kind to Sophie and uses his skills and knowledge to help her find her mother.

Vivienne Vert

Vivienne is Sophie’s mother. She also plays the cello and has "hair the colour of lightning".

Vivienne is determined and brave, like Sophie. She took the name 'George Green' and disguised herself as a man so that she could play in a ship’s orchestra. When the ship sank, she was separated from her daughter.

Activity

Themes are the main ideas that appear repeatedly in a novel. Some of the important themes in Rooftoppers are:

• Identity
• Hope
• Courage

Rooftoppers has a strong message that individual identity is more important than behaving in the way other people expect you to behave.

Sophie has a strong sense of her own identity. Charles supports this, even when her preferences go against what Victorian society expected from a young girl.

For example:

• He lets Sophie climb trees because being high up makes her feel safe
• He buys her a cello when she falls in love with the sound at a concert
• He lets her wear trousers and shirts rather than dresses

Both Charles and Sophie are happy to be themselves and don't worry about fitting in.

The same is true for the friends Sophie meets in Paris. Matteo, Anastasia, Safi and ��������� live unusual lives but they live in a way that allows them the freedom to be themselves.

Although it seems very unlikely that Sophie’s mother survived the ship sinking, Sophie never loses hope that she will find her.

Charles teaches Sophie to hope. He tells her that “almost impossible means still possible” and that you should “never ignore a possible”.

Sophie repeats this often throughout the book.

Sophie is a brave character. For example:

• At the start of the novel, she resists Miss Eliot's ideas about how young Victorian girls should behave.

• She follows her instincts and travels to Paris, even though the chances of finding her mother are slim.

• When she meets Matteo, she is determined to be able to run across the rooftops like him. She learns to ignore her fear in order to jump between roofs and climb walls.

• When she is balanced on a tightrope between two buildings, Sophie realises her own strength. She learns that by being brave she can also be free.

Activity

Writers choose words and phrases carefully when they write. Readers can look closely at texts to think about how and why the writer made these choices.

Similes

A simile uses 'like' or 'as' to make a comparison between two things.

When Sophie and Charles are travelling to Paris on the train, Sophie chooses a strawberry biscuit that "glinted like rubies" and tasted "like adventure". This suggests that Sophie is trying new things that might be unexpected but which are exciting.

The word "rubies" has connotations of treasure, suggesting that she will find something precious in Paris, perhaps her mother.

Metaphors

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes something by saying it is something else.

When baby Sophie first sees Charles, he is described as "night-time with a speaking voice" and "if ink had vocal chords". "Night-time" and "ink" both have connotations of darkness, so these metaphors could suggest that baby Sophie was uncertain and fearful at first.

Alternatively, "night-time" and "ink" might suggest comfort, like a lullaby or bed-time story would. Perhaps Rundell wanted to show how Charles' presence comforted baby Sophie.

Personification

When Sophie first hears cello music, the narrator says "it plucked at her fingers and feet". This is an example of personification because music is given human characteristics.

The verb '"plucked" suggests that the music plays Sophie rather than the other way round, showing how Sophie is physically affected by the music.

Activity

Structure refers to how written text is organised – the way the story is ordered and shaped.

Chronological order

Rooftoppers is told chronologically from start to finish, in the order that events happen. It begins with Sophie’s rescue and then quickly covers the first 12 years of her life to give the reader enough background to understand the setting and the characters.

When she is 12 and the authorities decide she cannot stay with Charles, the real adventure begins.

Symbols

A symbol is an object, person, image or event used to represent something bigger. For example, in Rooftoppers, the cello represents Sophie's mother.

When symbols are repeated throughout a text, they are called motifs. The repetition of these symbols shows that they are important.

The cello, and particularly Fauré’s Requiem played quickly on a cello, is a motif strongly associated with Sophie’s mother and is what eventually leads Sophie to her.

The context in which a novel was written can sometimes tell you more about its themes, message and meaning.

The Victorian period

Katherine Rundell doesn’t specify the exact historical time in which Rooftoppers is set, although the expectations on women, the use of train travel, lack of technology and references to Fauré’s Requiem suggest that it is set in the later Victorian era.

Victorian expectations of women were limited. For example:

• Girls were expected to wear skirts or dresses and have long hair.
• They should behave in a 'ladylike' way, which means they should be quiet and polite.
• Girls were often educated at home in practical things like cooking and needlework.
• It wasn’t compulsory to send girls to primary school until 1883, so many girls weren’t taught to read and write beyond what they needed to know at home.

Miss Eliot reflects this Victorian attitude. She disapproves of Sophie's appearance and behaviour and says she would "be embarrassed to be seen with her".

Sophie defies Victorian expectations and behaves in the way which feels natural for her instead. The book clearly shows that this is the best thing to do. If Sophie behaved in the way that Miss Eliot told her to, she would have been very unhappy.