In an engaging sequel to Gentle’s Holler (2005), Madden continues the story of the Weems family, and brings painfully shy and artistically talented 11-year-old Louise, the fourth of ten children, into sharper focus: “It’s only folks that scare Louise, not storms or snakes.” Set in Appalachia in 1963, the family struggles to cope when their daddy comes home from the Rip Van Winkle rest home after eight months; he’s slowly recovering from a car wreck and coma, but suffers from auditory hallucinations, has trouble with language and sometimes wanders off. “Who knew that a quieter Daddy would be the loudest sound in the world?” Twelve-year-old Livy Two again provides a poignant and spirited lens from which to view their hardscrabble yet loving family life. Resourceful as ever, she’s determined to figure out a way to help her family so they won’t have to leave their beloved mountain holler and move to their grandmother’s house in “Enka-Stinka,” next to a textile plant. This second of three Maggie Valley stories is a celebration of artists and words, and, though somewhat idealized, Madden’s fluid and heartfelt storytelling will leave young readers looking forward to more. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-670-06153-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
Still, its revelations make a fine yarn. (Fiction. 10- 14)
During the six days it takes Sal's paternal grandparents to drive her west to Idaho in time for her mother's birthday, she tells them about her friend Phoebe—a story that, the 13-year-old comes to realize, in many ways parallels her own: Each girl had a mother who left home without warning.
The mystery of Phoebe's more conventional mother's disappearance and its effects on her family and eventual explanation unfold as the journey, with its own offbeat incidents, proceeds; meanwhile, in Sal's intricate narrative, the tragic events surrounding her mother's flight are also gradually revealed. After Sal fell from a tree, her mother carried her back to the house; soon after, she bore a stillborn child. Slowly, the love between Sal's parents, her mother's inconsolable grief, and Sal's life since her departure emerge; last to surface are the painful facts that Sal has been most reluctant to face. Creech, an American who has published novels in Britain, fashions characters with humor and sensitivity, but Sal's poignant story would have been stronger without quite so many remarkable coincidences or such a tidy sum of epiphanies at the end.
Still, its revelations make a fine yarn. (Fiction. 10- 14)Pub Date: June 30, 1994
ISBN: 978-0-06-023334-1
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
All his life, Moon Blake has lived with his reclusive father, Oliver, on a remote tract of land in the woods surviving only on what they trap and grow. Soon after Moon turns ten, his father dies, leaving Moon to fend for himself. Before dying, Oliver instructs Moon to go to Alaska where he’ll find people just like them. Instead, Moon is taken and placed in a boys’ home where he loves having friends, but cannot bear being confined. Moon runs away with two boys, Kit and Hal, to the woods, where they live wild and free, evading capture, until Kit needs serious medical attention. Alone again, Moon begins to question his father’s lifestyle. With help from a friend, Moon is united with a paternal uncle he never knew he had and is ready to live in a house, sleep on a bed and eager to be a part of a loving family. Key writes honestly about hunting, trapping and the hardships of survival in this rather unusual coming-of-age story. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-30184-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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