Starred review from August 25, 2008
With its introspective mood and measured pace, this quietly captivating novel marks a new course for National Book Award–winner Horvath (The Canning Season
). Newly restless with the comfortable cadences of her family’s daily routine, Jane, 12, prays for adventures and finds plenty, thanks to the inhabitants of the Massachusetts beach town where she lives. The townspeople’s eccentricities are classic Horvath, but this time the protagonist takes charge of her own self-discovery; she becomes the storyteller instead of being the audience. As she comes to realize that “everyone in the whole world is, at the end of a day, staring at a dusky horizon, owner of a day that no one else will ever know,” Jane begins to sense what lies behind often flamboyant facades, understanding that the surly woman who has blackmailed Jane into a summer of babysitting can be “touchingly proud” of her waitress uniform; that the town preacher Nellie Phipps is mostly fascinated with herself, despite her talk of spiritual growth; and that a standoffish neighbor can come through in a crisis. A compassionate spirit infuses this luminous tale. Ages 8–12.
Starred review from September 1, 2008
Gr 4-7-This is Horvath's most luminescent, beautifully written novel yet. Jane Fielding lives what seems to be an idyllic life with her poet mother and three younger siblings in a house on the beach in coastal Massachusetts, where they gather mussels, pick berries to eat, and lay in the warm tidal pools. But at 12, Jane no longer wants every summer to be exactly the same. She prays for adventures, 100 of them, and gets 14, each of which gives her insights into understanding herself. She delivers Bibles from a hijacked hot-air balloon, is tricked into babysitting for the five messy Gourd children, is fleeced by a fortune-teller, and meets several men who could be her father. Horvath's latest offering certainly has some eccentric, unforgettable characters and some dark humor and irony. Yet the author has significantly mellowed in this quieter work, which will have wider kid-appeal. Indeed, it is Jane's honest, clear voicethat of a young girl on the natural cusp of separating from her familythat drives the story and engages readers. The author is a gifted writer, a word alchemist. She has an eye for exposing the miraculous in the mundane. The book is filled with pithy observations and memorable passages that invite immediate rereading and admiration. This is Horvath at the top of her game, and that's saying something."Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME"
Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from June 1, 2008
Jane, 12, longs for adventures, maybe a hundred of them.Not too much happensat the beach where she lives with her younger siblings and her mother, a poet with a fondness for putting up jam. Asthe summer slips by, adventures do find Jane--but theycomewith people attached. Her newfound relationship withpreacher Nellie leads to a trip in a hot-air balloon and a foray into the world of healings and psychic revelations. Mrs. Parks thrombosis (or is it bursitis?)anda desire to get to California result inan all-nightautomobile ride that endsbecauseMrs. Parksbottom gets sore. And throughout the summer theres a procession ofpossiblefathers: the free spirit, the poet, theSanta look-alike, theman in a suit who gets tossedin the ocean by a whale.With writing asfoamy as waves, asgritty as sand, or as deep as the sea, thisbookmay startlereaderswith the freedom given the heroine--independence that allowsher to experience, think about, and come to some hard-won conclusions about life.SometimesJanes duped, sometimes shes played; butif hope fades, it returns, and adventure still beckons.Unconventionality is Horvaths stock in trade, but here the high quirkiness quotientrests easilyagainst Janes inner story with its honest, childlike core.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2009
Twelve-year-old Jane has three siblings and a poet-baker-beachcomber mother. Over the course of one summer, four strange men turn up, and Jane's adventures (e.g., distributing Bibles from a hot-air balloon, all-day babysitting for the "smelly, runny" Gourd brood) tumble after one another--a lumpy mix of farce and burlesque. Along with a plenitude of mundane, poetic moments is a vibrant current of story.
(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
September 1, 2008
"All our lives are mundane, but all our lives are also poetry." And so it is with Horvath's latest book at its ambiguous, magical best. In the first of Jane Fielding's longed-for adventures, the summer she's twelve, a bony man in a loose suit turns up, stays for dinner, and invites the family to a fair in town. "That was your father," Jane's mother says afterward. Is he? Or does Jane's poet-baker-beachcomber mother think that she and her siblings need a father? In the course of the summer three more strange men turn up: a father for each of them? Meanwhile, Jane's adventures tumble after one another -- a lumpy mix of farce and burlesque. Fat, foolish preacher Nellie Phipps wheedles Jane into distributing Bibles from a hot-air balloon; one of the dropped Bibles allegedly strikes the youngest of the "smelly, runny" Gourd brood; and to prevent Mrs. G. from claiming compensation, Jane agrees to all-day babysitting, every day. Since the Gourds live in a trailer and Mr. G. is a violent drunk, that means taking them hither and yon into further adventures. Some of the farce is genuinely funny, like the competition between two elderly parishioners for the most serious illness, and even the lowly Gourds have their exalted moments. The Gourds are inescapably trailer trash, but Horvath is an equal-opportunity offender: she also caricatures a posturing poet and the culturally naive Ned -- the last and most empathetic of the possible fathers. There isn't the meanness, though, that has sometimes marred Horvath's previous books. And along with a plenitude of mundane, poetic moments, there's a vibrant current of story that doesn't end on the last page.
(Copyright 2008 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)