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Summary
Summary
Patricia MacLachlan, beloved author of the Newbery Medal-winning Sarah, Plain and Tall, has crafted another lyrical and touching novel for young readers about finding hope after the loss of a loved one. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 6, especially during homeschooling. It's a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.
Declan O'Brien always had a gentle word to share, odd phrases he liked to repeat, and songs to sing while he played basketball. His favorite song was "Dona Nobis Pacem," "Grant Us Peace." His family loved him deeply and always knew they were loved in return.
But a terrible accident one day changes their lives forever, and Fiona and Finn O'Brien are left without a father. Their mother is at a loss. What words are there to guide them through such overwhelming grief?
At the suggestion of their friend Luke, Fiona and Finn volunteer at an animal rescue shelter, where they meet two sweet dogs who are in need of comfort, too. Perhaps with time, patience, and their father's gentle words in their hearts, hope will spark once more.
* Junior Library Guild Selection * Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year 2019 (9-12) *
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-5-Fiona O'Brien and her brother, Finn, have a wonderful family in a home filled with love and humor. All that changes when their father, Declan, is killed in an automobile crash after he swerves to miss a child chasing a ball in the street. Fiona writes, "The days move slowly. Nights, too." With their mother returning to classes, Fiona takes responsibility for her little brother and tasks herself with finding ways to make Finn feel better. The answer comes via a notice from a local animal shelter that is looking for volunteers to help care for abandoned dogs. Fiona, Finn, and their friend Luke begin working there. Luke and Fiona walk the dogs while Finn reads to a depressed pup whose owner recently died. Slowly, Fiona and Finn find peace. The story's first-person narration by Fiona offers an immediate connection to readers, and sections of the book in a different typeface and font highlight her own personal reflections that are apart from the plot, which lends a solid authenticity to the gently flowing story. -VERDICT This heartwarming title from an acclaimed author is a solid choice for school and public libraries seeking new bibliotherapy titles for children on loss and grief.-Anne Jung-Mathews, Plymouth State University, NH © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Key relationships in her own life inspired this characteristically taut and resonant novel by Newbery Medalist MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain and Tall). Life as Fiona has known and loved it comes to a screeching halt over runny eggs one morning when Fiona's psychologist father-her guiding light, singer of "Dona Nobis Pacem" and player of driveway basketball-dies in a car accident after swerving to avoid hitting a child. Since her overwhelmed mother has been pursuing a degree, it falls to Fiona to keep her suddenly withdrawn younger brother, Finn (and herself), afloat over the summer. She receives rock-solid help from Luke, a remarkably intuitive neighbor; Emma, the rescue dog to whom Finn reads and sings at the local shelter; and one of her father's former patients, who pays the doctor's kindness forward by calling Fiona for two minutes each week and passing on her dad's indelible sayings ("Let the whole thing float down the river on a little boat"). MacLachlan masterfully mingles core themes in this slim volume: the power of words and song, memories and family, the mutually redemptive human-canine bond, and "the eternal fitness of things." Ages 8-12. Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Siblings Fiona and Finn grieve the sudden death of their beloved psychiatrist father with the help of Duke, the preternaturally wise boy next door; their father's former patient, Thomas; and--best of all--their daily interactions with dogs from the nearby animal shelter. With sensitivity and understanding, MacLachlan depicts the varying forms and routes that grieving can take for different people. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When a freak accident kills their father, Declan, the O'Brien family must discover how to heal.When Declan makes eggs, they are typically runny, but when Fiona complains, he tells her, "It's the eternal fitness of things," without any further explanation. Other phrases he loved were "Dona nobis pacem" and "often the truth is just behind the door." These and many other lovable idiosyncrasies will never be fully explained to Fiona and younger brother Finn, because as Declan drives to help one of his psychiatric patients, a child races after a ball that has rolled into the street. Declan swerves but is struck by a truck and killed instantly, off the page and in the first chapter. As the O'Brien family struggles with grief and anger, help comes in two unusual ways. First, Thomas, one of Declan's patients, calls Fiona each Monday for two minutes only and shares insights about her father. Secondly, neighbor and classmate Luke invites Fiona and Finn to go with him to a local animal rescue shelter to read to abandoned dogs. With her customary precise, spare language, infused with emotional intelligence, MacLachlan takes readers from shocked grief to a way to live again, fundamental truths dropped carefully and delicately for young readers to comprehend in their own time.Simple words make a flawless story about resilience, hope, healing, and the eternal fitness of things. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Newbery-medalist MacLachlan is known for writing heart-tugging stories in spare style, as she did in Sarah, Plain and Tall (1985). And that's what she does here as readers meet Fiona and Finn and, briefly, their psychologist father. But before the first chapter ends, Declan O'Brien is dead, hit by a truck as he swerved to avoid a toddler in the street. The family attempts to right itself, with Mrs. O'Brien continuing her course work and Fiona trying to fill in. But Finn is struggling. Thomas, a patient of Dr. O'Brien, asks if he can call Fiona for 10 minutes each week and tell her something about her father. It's Thomas who suggests Finn find someone or something to help, and it's next-door neighbor Luke who takes them to volunteer at the animal shelter. Finn's special charge is Emily, a dog whose owner has died. He takes it upon himself to figure out what Emily needs and where she belongs, and in saving Emily, he begins to save himself. None of these children seem much like real kids. In word or deed, all display wisdom far beyond their years, and Dr. O'Brien is perfection personified. Yet there's nothing cloying here, nor does this purity affect the story's emotion or the way it connects to readers. Instead, it testifies to the resilience of life. Deeply moving and uplifting in unexpected ways.--Ilene Cooper Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
SO MUCH OF early childhood is about animals. We dress toddlers in T-shirts emblazoned with zoo creatures, teach them songs about livestock and tuck them in with stuffed bunnies. Their picture books feature peace-loving bulls, cookie-loving mice and oversize red dogs who make excellent stand-ins for little humans. But the middle-grade years - when kids' passions are still more fixed on kittens and horses than the opposite sex - are the real sweet spot for animal books. This is when we get animal protagonists with inner lives as complicated as a 10-year-old's ("Charlotte's Web") and tender stories about kids whose beloved pets help them grow and mature (I call them bildogsromans), like Kate DiCamillo's "Because of Winn-Dixie." There's also the recurring theme of an animal rescued by a resourceful child - what could feel more empowering to a 10-yearold than saving a life? Four new novels provide their own twists on these classic story lines and prove, once again, that tales about animals can help kids understand the world and themselves. PATRICIA MACLACHLAN ("Sarah, Plain and Tall") is the master of quiet books that pack an emotional wallop. She's also a die-hard dog lover who's written several novels celebrating the healing power of her favorite creatures. Her latest, my father's words (HarperCollins, 144 pp., $15.99; ages 8-12), finds the author in her element: It's the story of a sister and brother who start volunteering at a dog shelter after their father's sudden death. And though the premise might seem way too sad - or even a bit too obvious - MacLachlan turns it into something remarkable. Fiona and Finn's father was a psychologist who loved runny eggs, choral music, basketball and passing along bits of therapy-speak to his children, like the meaning of "passive aggressive." After he is killed in a car accident, fifth grader Fiona notices that the younger Finn has become withdrawn and angry. When the children begin spending time at an animal shelter, Finn bonds with a dog named Emma. Fiona, meanwhile, begins to heal with the help of a former patient of her dad's who calls her once a week to share her father's words, which helped him years ago. In this slim book, MacLachlan provides a beautifully nuanced portrait of one family's recovery after tragedy. Yes, the dogs help the bereaved children - as Fiona puts it, "sometimes people needed dogs to teach the people how good they can be." But they also find comfort in the kind gestures of neighbors, games of basketball in the driveway at night, favorite picture books and new stories about their father from people who knew him. Written in the solemn voice of Fiona, an observant girl who seems to have inherited her father's instinct for listening, the book feels as direct and true as a dog looking you straight in the eyes. IN SHARON CREECH'S SAVING WINSLOW (HarperCollins, 176 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12) the rescued creature is a scrawny minidonkey named Winslow, with "black eyes and feathery eyelashes." Beware: This guy is so cute, young readers may be lobbying their parents for one. Born on an uncle's nearby farm, the "pitiful" motherless creature isn't expected to live long. But 10-year-old Louie takes him in, and just like the immortal Fern with runty Wilbur, he pours on the tender love and care, bottle feeding him and wrapping him in blankets. Naturally, as Winslow begins to thrive, he gives back. He helps Louie deal with the painful absence of his older brother, who's left home for the Army. And he coaxes Nora, an odd new girl who oozes negativity, into shedding her prickly exterior. The bond that develops between boy and donkey is genuinely heartwarming. And in seeing Louie's relentless efforts to keep Winslow alive - he sleeps with him in the cellar, wakes for 4 a.m. feedings and even learns how to administer injections - young readers may absorb a subtle lesson in passion and persistence. The plot itself is rather uneventful: At one point, Winslow goes missing, and that's about it, dramawise. But the story is buoyed by the whisper-weight chapters and Creech's spare, poetic language. Creech isn't writing in verse (which she used to great effect in "Love That Dog!") but her words evoke imagery that will linger in a reader's mind long after the final page. When Louie first sees Winslow, for instance, "he felt a sudden rush, as if the roof had peeled off the house and the sun had dived into every corner of the kitchen." SOMETIMES THE WILD and fierce are more fascinating than the domesticated and cuddly. Carl Hiaasen's best-selling middle-grade capers ("Hoot," "Flush," "Scat," "Chomp") all have intrepid tweens, lawbreaking baddies and endangered Florida wildlife at their center. His latest, SQUIRM (Knopf, 276 pp., $18.99; ages 8 to 12), is narrated by Billy Dickens, who lives with his mom and sister in Florida. Billy doesn't have a "halfway normal life" for a few reasons: He hasn't heard from his father since he was 3 or 4, his eagleobsessed mom makes him and his sister move every few years so they can live near an active nest, and he spends most of his free time with snakes. When Billy figures out that his dad - who may or may not be working for the C.I.A. - is living in Montana, he flies out West to confront him. There, he meets his father's new wife and stepdaughter and becomes embroiled in a high-stakes battle involving snakes, grizzlies, drones and villainous gun-toting trophy hunters. It's a fun romp that will keep readers hooked, even as the plot becomes increasingly convoluted in the manner of a wacky PG-13 movie. Perhaps best of all is the way Hiaasen conveys the wonders of wild creatures, from the "skittish and solitary" behavior of panthers to the unusual nesting habits of swallows. Don't be surprised if after reading "Squirm," your young reader tells you the safest way to handle a yellow rat snake or scare off a grizzly. And now that we're on the subject of bears, let's consider the most famous bear of all. Most children think of Winnie-thePooh as the mustard-yellow bear in the bafflingly small red shirt. But before Disney got hold of him, dear sweet Pooh was, of course, the creation of the British author A. A. Milne, whose inspiration was an actual black bear named Winnie at the London Zoo during World War I. ADOPTED AS AN ORPHANED cub by a Canadian Army veterinarian named Henry Colebourn, Winnie eventually sailed to England with the troops. The author Lindsay Mattick and the illustrator Sophie Blackall shared the story in their 2015 Caldecott Medal-winning "Finding Winnie." Now, Mattick (a great-granddaughter of Colebourn) has teamed with the author Josh Greenhut on Winnie's great war (Little, Brown, 227 pp., $16.99; ages8 to 12), a middle-grade novel, also illustrated by Blackall, that expands upon these events for a slightly older audience. This fleshed-out Winnie is very much a reflection of Milne's Pooh - a naive, openhearted creature with a great weakness for food and capacity for love. We get a range of dramatic scenes conjured by the authors, including Winnie's last moments with her mother (who utters "Be brave, my Bear!" before she's shot by a trapper) and the friendships she makes with squirrels, horses and a rat named Tatters. While the juxtaposition of cute talking animals and excerpts from Colebourn's actual diary entries is disorienting, the overall result is a work of undeniable charm. This is distinctively old-fashioned, gentle storytelling that children will enjoy hearing read aloud. And the photographs of the real Winnie at the end of the book are the clincher - a reminder that real animals can be more enchanting than any we've imagined. CATHERINE hong writes for publications including Architectural Digest and Martha Stewart Living, and blogs about children's books at mrslittle.com.