ELLEN'S BOOK OF LIFE

by Joan Givner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2008

Ellen Fremedon's family—Ellen most of all—is desperately stressed by her mother's illness, and a trip across the country to visit with friends provides only the briefest of reprieves before her mother's death sends everyone into the dislocation and alienation of grief. The discovery of a letter from her mother giving Ellen her blessing to find her birth mother pulls Ellen back into touch with the world. Her biological relatives—her birth mother, a prickly, successful lawyer, her Holocaust-survivor great-grandfather and the grandmother who embraces her newfound granddaughter—prove to be a gift not only to Ellen but to her father and younger brothers as well. Ellen's resulting interest in her Jewish heritage is cautious but keen; her father returns to an interest in the world by fighting against a waterfront development project in their small Vancouver Island town. The several threads of the story weave together without fanfare but with a calm assurance that creates a sturdy sense of character and believability. (Fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008

ISBN: 0888998538

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Groundwood

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008

Categories: CHILDREN'S