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Searching... Mount Angel Public Library | + BASKIN | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Twelve-year-old Gabby feels that she needs a mother to help her grow into a woman, so when things between her father and his latest girlfriend do not work out, Gabby set off for the last place she remembers seeing her own mother.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-7-Baskin has created a thoroughly likable and credible character in this candid, lively, and absorbing story. Like most 12-year-old girls, Gabby focuses on becoming a woman, but she's not really sure what that means. Her mother died when Gabby was three and she's been researching the question for herself. She feels doubly cheated because, unlike her older brother Ian, she has no memory of her mother, and her father won't talk about her. Gabby remains a well-adjusted, keenly observant, capable adolescent. She stands up for and befriends a new girl in sixth grade and hopes that her father will marry his new girlfriend. Finally, in an attempt to trigger her memory about her mother's death, she is determined to take a train to New York City to see the apartment where they lived at the time. Gabby's emotional discovery about the circumstances of her mother's death brings the story to a dramatic conclusion, but readers will feel confident that she will get through it and thrive. The author has created an engrossing coming-of-age story peopled with characters about whom it is easy to care, and Ian's empathy when he realizes his sister's needs is beautifully developed. This is a fine novel that offers a perceptive and positive look at dealing with loss.-Renee Steinberg, Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gabby, the sixth-grade narrator of this bittersweet, emotionally complex first novel, ardently wishes she had someone to teach her how to be more like a girl ("or womanly or girlish or feminine, whatever you want to call it"). Gabby was three when her mother died, and she doesn't get much guidance from her art professor dad or older brother. Her father's girlfriend, Cleo, seems to be teaching Gabby a lot, but the more Gabby learns about girlhood, the more complicated life gets. Will Gabby measure up to the standards of Mrs. Tyler, mother of Gabby's new best friend? As Cleo and her dad get engaged, can Gabby call Cleo "Mom"? Then there are even more disturbing puzzles, such as why Cleo suddenly breaks up with Gabby's father, and why the subject of Gabby's mother is always carefully avoided. Possessing a keen understanding of pubescent concerns and a good ear for "tween" talk, Baskin sensitively renders the tumultuous period between childhood and adolescence. Although the author focuses on conflicts specific to girls, she also pays close attention to shaping the males in her book, making them three-dimensional, sympathetic characters, who, readers will sense, have stories as complex as Gabby's. Resolutions are not sugar-coated, and the light at the end of Gabby's journey into womanhood seems real. Ages 9-12. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Gabby Weiss longs for her father to remarry so that she will have a stepmother who can help her navigate the transition from childhood to adolescence. When her father doesn't marry the woman Gabby assumed he would, she begins the painful and fulfilling task of exploring her own past. The novel skillfully blends accounts of Gabby's life at home and at school. From HORN BOOK Fall 2001, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In this unusual, deeply felt story about a motherless girl, 12-year-old Gabby lives with her painter father and older brother, Ian. She longs not only for a mother to instruct her in the womanly arts, but also for a best friend to share things with. Her wishes are suddenly answered when Cleo, her favorite of all the women her father has dated, becomes engaged to her dad and a wonderful new girl joins her school class. Gabby is relieved and happy that she has finally found females she can connect with, until the unexpected happens. Her father and Cleo break up, and in a heart-wrenching gasp-out-loud moment, Cleo shatters Gabby's hopes for a fairytale family with a real mother at the helm. But Cleo's temporary presence has awoken Gabby's long-dormant curiosity about her own mother. She's particularly interested in probing into her mother's mysterious death, a taboo topic in her household and something she has always felt guilty about. Determined to find out the truth, she talks her older brother into accompanying her on a pilgrimage to New York, hoping a visit to their old home will jog their collective memories. There she learns some hard, though guilt-relieving truths, finally becoming able to have "embraced her [mother's] existence" and say "good-bye." Although slow in spots, Baskin's first person narrative is smoothly engaging overall, and the dialogue rings true. The sympathetic protagonist has reality and dimension, and readers should be squarely in her corner as she goes through the difficult process of becoming a young woman. (Fiction. 9-12)
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-8. As in Holmes' story, on p.1883, this first novel is a mystery about a young person's search for the truth about a parent long dead. It is also a gripping coming-of-age story. Gabby Weiss was three when her mom died, and no one ever talks about it. Like the motherless girl in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series, Gabby also wants advice about being a woman. She makes a close friend at school, and she loves her father's new girlfriend, who takes her shopping for cool clothes and rejoices with Gabby when she gets her period. But gradually it becomes clear that this story is more than an affectionate comedy about growing up female. There's a dark secret in Gabby's family. Since she was a toddler, she has felt sure that she caused her mother's death. Now she learns that her reserved older brother feels guilty, too, and so does her father. What's especially moving here is that everything is true to Gabby's viewpoint. Through her first-person narrative, the reader feels the father's distance. Dad doesn't mention Gabby's mother; he barely talks about anything. How did her mother die? The upbeat friendship story and the painful family mystery are a winning combination, and many readers will recognize that Gabby's search for her mother is also a search for herself. --Hazel Rochman