Find A Stranger, Say Goodbye

Find A Stranger, Say Goodbye. Lois Lowry. 1978/2018. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 192 pages. [Source: Review copy]

"If you get a fat letter, it means you've been accepted. If you get a thin letter, forget it."

Natalie Armstrong is about to graduate from high school. The year is 1977. Before she begins college, Natalie wants to search for her biological mother. She loves, loves, loves her parents. Her father is a doctor, and she wants to be one too. Her mother is wonderful kind of crazy. Her younger sister, Nancy, is a true friend. She's not wanting to find her mother out of emptiness or loneliness. Not really. But the need to know her mother, her mother's story, is strong.

Her parents gift her--for graduation--a box with all the information they have on her adoption. Her grandmother gifts her with correspondence. (Letters from her mother to Natalie's grandmother).

Where will her journey take her?

My thoughts: I enjoyed this one very much. It is a thoughtful character-driven novel. I loved spending time with Natalie and her family. My two favorite characters were Natalie and her grandmother, Tallie. I especially loved their conversations together. I also love how it captures the promise and potential of that time of life. Everything is in a state of change, the only thing certain is that one door has closed forever. 

"Sometimes we have to hurt people, in order to keep ourselves whole. We must just do it with love, that's all."
"That doesn't make much sense to me," admitted Natalie.
"Where is it written that anything has to make sense? All I mean is that when you have to hurt someone you love, do it honestly. And you're doing that. You could have sneaked around and done what you're doing. It would have been more difficult, of course, but you could have done it, Natalie. And you didn't. You told them exactly what you were doing. And it hurt, but they know you love them." (63)

© 2018 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

A Cat Named Swan

A Cat Named Swan. Holly Hobbie. 2017. Random House. 32 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: Then he was alone. Where was his mother? What had happened to his brothers and sisters? They were gone. The streets were a place of constant danger. Yet day by day, he found enough food to eat. Day by day, he managed to elude the threats that surrounded him. He survived. One morning, though, he did not escape the peril that came down on him.

Premise/plot: A kitten from the streets is taken to a shelter and then adopted by a loving family.

After many days had passed, he learned that the house was his house, the yard was his yard. He learned that the people were his people and he was theirs. He belonged to them and they belonged to him.

My thoughts: A Cat Named Swan is a sweet picture book about a family adopting a cat. It is a story of belonging and family. The text is just as adorable as the illustrations. I love, love, love the illustrations. My favorite illustration was the last one. Swan all nestled up in a bowl.

Text: 4.5 out of 5
Illustrations: 4.5 out of 5
Total: 9 out of 10

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Heaven (MG)

Heaven. By Angela Johnson. 1998. Simon & Schuster. 144 pages.

In Heaven there are 1,637 steps from my house to the Western Union.

Meet Marley. She's our fun-loving heroine whose world is about to get a little shaky when she discovers that her parents haven't been telling her the whole truth about her life, about who she is.

Marley has lived most of her fourteen years in Heaven, Ohio. And, for the most part, she's loved it. She's got her friends Shoogy, Bobby, and Feather to keep her company. Plus her family. But one day, one letter changes everything. Puts everything into question. At least in Marley's mind. Can Marley find her way again? Can she find a way to accept these new truths? Will she find a way to forgive her parents?

This coming of age story is well written, in fact it won the Coretta Scott King Award.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

All the Broken Pieces (MG)

Burg, Ann E. 2009. All the Broken Pieces: A Novel In Verse. Scholastic. 220 pages.

My name is Matt Pin
and her name, I remember,
is Phang My.
His name
I will never say,
though forever I carry his blood
in my blood,
forever his bones
stretch in my bones.
To me,
he is nothing.
If he stumbled on me now,
I wonder,
would he see himself in my eyes?
And I?
Would I recognize the dragon
who went beyond the mountain
and never came back?

Thus opens All The Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg. A verse novel about so much more than Vietnam and baseball. It's been two years since Matt has come to America and been placed with a new family: a new mom and dad and brother. But time isn't healing everything. Sometimes silence speaks volumes. How can his new family help Matt the most? How can they start him on the right path, the path to healing and peace? How can they support him best?

The verse is incredibly well-written. It was so powerful and compelling. It had so many wow-moments for me. Little poems that I just had to read over and over again because they resonated so deep and strong.

My top drawer
is full of pencils, new,
used, half-used, and
all-the-way-to-the-eraser-cap used.
I never get rid of pencils.
I never get rid of anything.
Who knows?
Even a stub
is worth something.

If bombs fall here,
if something terrible
ever happens
that I get sent away,
I'll stuff everything
I can fit
into my pockets.

Even the broken pieces
are worth something
to me. (58-59)

What did I love about this one? It had heart and soul. I loved Matt. I ached for him really. He was hurting so deeply, yet he didn't know how to reach out for help. He needed love so desperately, and yet he was afraid that his new family didn't love him enough. He thought his mother loved him, but she gave him away. That's how he sees it. Can Matt learn the power of love? And what that love sometimes means.

So yes, this book is about baseball. Because baseball is one of the things that helps Matt most. And being on a team, being a part of the team helps heal him in so many ways. Even if it means struggling a bit to find that place on the team.

I think this one works really, really well. I just loved it.

Other reviews: Kids Lit, A Year of Reading, Reading Junky's Reading Roost, Semicolon, Musings of a Book Addict.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Martian Child

Gerrold, David. 2002. The Martian Child. Tor.

Toward the end of the meeting, the caseworker remarked, "Oh--and one more thing. Dennis thinks he's a Martian."

Why did I pick up The Martian Child? It was part impulse. It was on display in the 'popular book' section*. I don't know what I saw first: John Cusack's face, the word Martian, or those lovely little words "winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards." But talk about an irresistible combination for me.

What is it about? It's about two people finding each other. Two people making a connection--a connection that is "against the odds" according to some. You see, David is a single guy (a gay man) who wants to adopt a child, a son. And Dennis is a young boy who has been in the foster care system for almost all of his life, and, well, even his caseworkers don't believe in him, don't like him. They're doing their jobs. But they don't like him, don't care about him, he's just a file to them. A thick file. A problem on their hands. But when David sees his picture, he feels something. His instinct tells him this is the one, this is my son. When David realizes he's the only one that cares about what happens to this little boy, well, let's just say that it's something worth reading about.

Did I enjoy this one? Yes. I read it in one afternoon. I couldn't put it down. It was an emotional story--it had its ups and downs. But from the very first page I cared. I loved the writing. It was incredible. David Gerrold knows how to tell a compelling story.

There isn't any way to stop telling stories. Storytelling is the fundamental act of communication. It's a major part of being human.
Every time a person communicates, he tells a little story--what happened to the last piece of chocolate cake, why the dog is wearing your sister's hat, and why the UFO's haven't returned Elvis yet. Big stories, little stories. Why I was late for work, why I was speeding, and how this phone number got into my wallet. I can explain everything. I can tell a story.
The stories we tell--that's us explaining how we think the world works. Once we speak it, once we say it aloud, that makes it real for us--and real for everyone else who hears it too. When we tell a story, we invite people to visit our reality. We invite them to move in. Our stories are the reality we live in.
That's very powerful.
Because we can choose what stories we want to tell--we can choose the stories we want to live.
Here's my story--

So do I recommend it? Yes! I really think this one has a lot to offer readers.

*There are times I doubt this section. Not all the time, I browse the shelves and see new books by 'big' authors, books making the rounds in the blog world, but then occasionally I'll find the odd book. A book that is older, much older. A book that makes me want to sing "one of these things is not like the others..." A book that makes me think the person shelving just didn't want to make the walk upstairs.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews