The Mirror With Nine Lives by Robert G. Rose

About the book

The Mirror With Nine Lives is three stories in one. A common thread throughout each of the stories is the importance of grandparents. The main story belongs to Alexandra Bowers Chauncey, a computer-savvy middle schooler whose parents are separated and possibly headed for divorce. Her mother has taken a job teaching in an elite, college preparatory school and Alex, as her family and close friends know her, is actually in her mother's language arts class. It doesn't help that Alex isn't trying very hard to fit in with the sons and daughters of millionaires, or so it seems. At the nearby air force base, Alex's father has precipitated the separation by failing to sign-up for his final four year tour of duty. He is, apparently, abandoning a potential government retirement package to pursue his passion of inventing. This is what has caused the marital breakup in Alex's life. An underlying sadness of Alex's situation is the loss of her cat Sunny.

On the other side of the world, Alex's grandfather is the Regional Information Officer for the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia. He's a spy. More pertinent to the story, he exchanges e-mails with his granddaughter and together they write light fantasy stories. The first to be revealed is The Mirror With Nine Lives, which takes place in the mythical kingdom of Thysdrus.

Auranda, the teenage heroine of their story within a story, has inherited some interesting traits. Her mother is an ecoteur and can talk with animals, though that is generally a family secret. Her habib father is a renown explorer and map maker who possesses special healing abilities.

Auranda discovers a kitten magically trapped inside a fantastic mirror with a frame carved in the form of a shaggy dragon. The dragon is holding on tightly to a crescent shaped mirror. Auranda's maternal grandparents have an unexpected connection to the mirror but know nothing of the kitten. In rescuing the kitten, Auranda infatuates a prince of the prairie tribes, uses her own ecoteur and habib skills to solve some problems, and is responsible for a final confrontation between the wizard who made the mirror and the real dragon who holds the mirror. Although The Mirror has a happy ending, the dying dragon leaves a curse on the land that will come back to haunt Auranda and her prince in the second part of the trilogy.

Meanwhile, Alex's grandfather proves very resourceful in facilitating her parents' potential reconciliation and with introducing a new kitten into Alex's life. He is also a key player in securing her father an important, and very lucrative, military contract to produce his newly invented one-man, reconnaissance dirigible. The dirigible is for all practical purposes invisible and impervious to rifle fire. Both of these properties are closely tied to actual scientific breakthroughs in materials technology.

The next story within the story is revealed at the culmination of the Young Authors week celebration at Alex's new school. Alex's grandfather is the surprise guest who reads to the whole school community gathered in their auditorium. It is also a surprise to Alex when she gets to join him on stage as she reads the second volume of their Thysdrus trilogy.

In part two, The Sands of Thysdrus, Auranda and Prince Jermith are married. Auranda's parents, Wendlyn the ecoteur and Bobtok the Finder, are longing for a grandchild. Alas, the dying curse from the dragon was to prevent human babies from being born in Thysdrus. That is, until the curse is broken. It follows that Wendlyn and Bobtok are instrumental in breaking the curse. However, the relief is short lived as an evil witch steals the newborn baby. Grandmother Wendlyn makes some brave choices before the emotional duel with the witch reunites her family. In the end, Prince Jermith presents the newest addition of the family to the world as Krys Topher ben Jermith. Krys Topher is the hero in the final installment of the Thysdrus trilogy, which is not included in this novel.

Alex's dilemma comes to an end with her being a published young author. She has a new kitten. She has some new friends and her parents are back together. Her father is going to be a millionaire from his invention, but Alex isn't going to find out about that until next month when she turns thirteen. That story continues with the sequel to The Mirror in The Song of Djerba.

The Mirror With Nine Lives and The Sands of Thysdrus are embellished with ancient Roman and Arabic place names and modern terms from the Maghreb region of North Africa. Both stories are richly influenced by the author's adventures in Tunisia. Indeed, the mirror of the story actually exists. For decades it rested in an antique shop deep in the bowels of the city medina in Tunis. After several years of persistent negotiations the mirror has finally come to rest in the author's home awaiting its next adventure.

About the author

Robert Rose is a veteran of the Viet Nam war era and a grandfather of two. He earned a B.S. in Education and a M.S. (in environmental biology) from Emporia State University. After pushing tin as an air traffic controller for several years, he stepped up to a more challenging endeavor and became a high school biology teacher. Robert has now worked and lived in seven different countries and has visited twenty-two others.

He has published more than fifty articles, book reviews, editorials, and columns in magazines and professional journals. He has also authored three educational booklets. Robert was honored to meet President George H.W. Bush in the White House rose garden to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching. He has also received the Outstanding Biology Teacher award from the National Association of Biology Teachers, an Educator of the Year award from the National Association of Conservation Districts, and has collected many other benchmarks of a professional teaching career.

Some of Robert's favorite adventures with his wife of thirty-six years include camping in the Luzon cloud forests in the Philippines; diving in the coral reefs of the south Pacific; photographing lions, elephants, giraffes and other African wildlife; camel caravanning in the Sahara desert, white water rafting in the Austrian Alps, dog sledding across Alaskan glaciers, and his list goes on and on because the adventure isn't over yet. Not surprisingly, every adventure gives rise to a new story or two.

Robert and his wife Wendy moved to Japan to be close to their daughter and their grandchildren. He is currently teaching in Japan with Tokyo Bay outside his classroom window and Mt. Fuji looming to the west. Still, his favorite teaching assignment was in the ancient city of Carthage on the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia. Daily walks through the ruins of Carthage and weekend excursions throughout the ancient empire of Rome that is present day Tunisia spawned the original Sands of Thysdrus story that is embedded in The Mirror With Nine Lives novel. Thus, the Mirror is riddled with Roman and Muslim place names and related features of the northern Sahel region of Africa.