January 15, 2011
Set on the Canadian prairie, as was Tumbleweed Skies (2009), Sherrard's latest movingly documents 11-year-old Luke's coming of age in 1946 as he comes to deeply love his new neighbor, Gracie, also 11. Gracie, endearingly spontaneous and affectionate, is the daughter of Raedine, who sets small-town tongues wagging when she takes a job at the local hotel, also a brothel, and people discover that her child is illegitimate. Luke and Gracie, in their innocence, initially have no idea why the townspeople and their children turn on Gracie. When she's ostracized at school, Luke becomes her defender, a difficult position after their loving teacher is fired for trying to protect the child from classmates' bullying. Yet Gracie seems almost ethereally indifferent to her situation. While Luke's parents don't shun Raedine, neither will they explain what's behind the prejudice she and Gracie encounter, leaving him to explore the possibilities. Chapters begin with information about tornadoes, but it isn't clear until the climax that this foreshadowing is more than just a symbolic representation of the town's stormy bias. Luke's first-person narration is fresh and emotionally true, charting his growing awareness of his own human failure to live up to Gracie's tender yet believable goodness. This haunting depiction of small-mindedness will leave readers wondering, as Luke comes to, about Gracie's true nature: heavenly child—or angel? (Historical fiction. 10 & up)
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
June 1, 2011
Gr 6-8-In 1946 Canada, Gracie and her mother move to a small, rural town where the girl befriends Luke, a fellow 12-year-old in need of a close friend. Gracie is open, sweet, and enthusiastic, and Luke not only gains a best friend, but also falls a little in love. But single women with children are suspect in the World War II era, and Gracie's mother is not making any friends. In fact, the townsfolk's disapproval trickles down to Gracie, making her life difficult. When a tornado strikes, Luke, Gracie's mother, and the townspeople all have a reckoning, as Gracie disappears. Sherrard has created rich descriptions of the place and its people with the narrative set up as Luke looking back on these events. Throughout the story, he learns and grows, but Gracie plops fully formed and angelic onto the scene, only to be literally lifted up at the end. Although set in a farming community, the main sense that comes across is "small town" with all the good and bad that term connotes. Themes of acceptance and forgiveness are dealt with rather heavy-handedly; the tornado shakes up the town much like Gracie's mother did earlier. The children build a Circle of Truth out of stone and use it as a place of refuge. There is even a magical black woman who helps the youngsters make sense of things. It would be a perfect Oprah book club pick, but seems rather ponderous for a children's book.-Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT
Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 15, 2011
Grades 6-9 Love, family, faith, grief, and guilt are the big issues that form the drama in this YA novel, but the story never gets too message-heavy and always remains true to the viewpoint of Luke, 11, in a small town near Winnipeg, Canada, just after WWII. After falling hard for a new classmate, Gracie, Luke stays loyal to her when the others claim that her story about her father dying as a war hero is a lie. The word around town is that Gracie never knew her daddy. And why does her mother have so many male visitors? And what about Lukes daddy: did he injure his leg to avoid the draft? In a moving novel with no clear answers, Lukes spot-on narrative captures a young boys confusion as he tries to puzzle out the truth. The climax, in a storm, is a bit too metaphorical, but the small-town values and the heartbreak in daily life will touch readers, and, rare in YA novels, the preteens passionate feelings of love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)