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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Amateau, G. 2009 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A teenager journeys from shame to strength when she moves to her grandmother's farm in a story infused with southern spirit and heart.
This is the last time Mary Harold will have a panic attack at school when kids call her "the grossest girl." If Mom won't move back to Alabama, her thirteen-year-old daughter will just have to drive herself 691 miles to Grandma Ayma's farmhouse -- and a whole new life. With Ayma's loving support, Mary Harold is soon strong enough to help Bud, the Cherokee farm manager, wrangle the cows, and confident enough to stand up for his daughter, Dixie, a girl with a strain of peculiar that makes her whinny and stamp like a horse to keep the world at bay. Mary Harold still misses her mom, but has started to have dreams of the Black Warrior Forest that are offering clues. As she listens to their message, and to her own heart, she discovers how powerful and surprising the bonds of family can be.
Author Notes
Gigi Amateau is the author of Chancey of the Maury River and Claiming Georgia Tate. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-9-Overhearing a group of boys comparing her to worse-than-disgusting girls, Mary Harold, 13, feels another panic attack coming on. It seems easier to change her entire life rather than endure more days of being the outcast. She steals her mom's pickup and drives all night to rural Alabama, where her grandmother convinces the teen's mother to let her stay. Next-door neighbor Bud and his two strange kids-Dixie, who thinks she's a horse, and Delta, who is just plain mean-fit with her far better than anyone else. A summer of having her own cow, adopting a fawn, and farm chores galore combine to toughen her up. When school starts, Mary Harold's friendship with Dixie puts her in the odd position of defending someone who is the outcast, as she once was. Amateau's plot and characters reveal the intensity of emotion and the struggle for place that create those kids who feel they are outside of normal. The rural community of Wren feels so intimate that a discussion of how to wipe upon hearing of a bladder infection is no big thing. Readers who feel left out in their own communities may find the lessons Mary Harold learns a bit too easy, and her ability to locate the father of her dreams seems unreasonably fortuitous. However, the first-person narrative brings an immediacy to the teen's humanity and hurt in this oddly familiar tale of an outcast finding her place.-Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library, CO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Thirteen-year-old Mary Harold has panic attacks because she's "afraid of dying." Hoping to control these episodes, she leaves her mother in Virginia, moving back to her grandmother's Alabama farm. Full of strange yet appealing characters--a girl who thinks she's a horse, a boy who is violently angry--this novel about identity and the meaning of home succeeds with Southern warmth and charm. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Tired of relentless bullying from her sixth-grade classmates, Mary Harold steals her mother's car and travels 691 miles to live with her nurturing grandmother in Wren, Ala. She learns cattle wrangling from the family's ranch manager and befriends his daughter, Dixie. Mary physically and emotionally reinvents herself when the two form an intense friendship. When classmates ridicule the pair for their perceived romantic relationship, Mary defends Dixie by becoming a bully herself. Mary's loving feelings toward Dixie are sensitively expressed and gently realized as she begins to question her sexuality. More character background would enhance believability; however, Amateau successfully alternates scenes of uncomfortable bullying with familiar sanctuary, providing balance and perspective. Unfortunately, the obvious parallels between the natural world and Mary's maturation result in heavy-handed symbolism. The tidy conclusions detract from honest characterization, and Mary's random thoughts occasionally create a jarring effect in the first-person, present-tense narration. Even so, this offering may resonate with select readers who can overlook the novel's oddities to find a heroine with heart. (Fiction. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This unusual, sensitive story joins the growing list of YA titles featuring strong, influential grandmothers and older women. Fed up after being harassed and bullied at school, 13-year-old Mary hops in her mother's old truck and drives from her Virginia home to her grandmother's cattle farm in Alabama, where she knows she can be herself, even if that self is a certain strain of peculiar. Welcoming her are the farm's manager, Bud, and his own peculiar children: mean and destructive Delta, and Dixie, who prefers neighing and cantering to human forms of communication. It is her grandmother's nurturing that helps Mary learn that running away solves few problems. Amateau's strong, deftly drawn, eccentric characters, combined with the idyllic rural setting, add depth to the familiar story of a teen's gradual path to self-acceptance. Offer this to young teens who see themselves as outsiders and to those who love the peculiar among us.--Bradburn, Frances Copyright 2009 Booklist