ANGELS ON THE ROOF [Hardcover]

Martha Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 1997

Fourteen-year-old Shelby cannot understand why her mother, Zoe, is constantly packing them up and moving. Now that they've lived in the city for a year and Shelby even has a best friend, she's determined to stay put. She's tired of being at the mercy of her mother's strange moods and sudden whims. And she's tired of Zoe's evasions, especially on the subject of Shelby's father. When Shelby finds some concrete evidence of his existence--old photographs with a man's head carefully cut out--she determines to confront her mother. But before she has the chance, Zoe announces that they're taking a trip to Red Valley, where she used to live. Shelby hopes she can find some answers there and leave quickly. But Red Valley turns out to have a strange hold on Zoe, and Shelby discovers that some questions might be better left alone.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's not Shelby's fault that she's considered one of the "At Risk" kids at school; it's her mother's fault. Shelby doesn't need socks given to her in charity. She doesn't need help on her homework. She just needs someone to talk some sense into her loony mother, who--in between obsessive devotions to dead artist Georgia O'Keeffe--prepares for yet another move. Shelby is tired of her mother's antics and refuses to move anymore. What are they running from anyway? Martha Moore, winner of the Delacorte Prize for her previous book, Under the Mermaid Angel, has composed this novel like a brook: it seeps slowly, at first willy-nilly, but soon gathers strength and finds enough force to etch itself into the hard rock of our hearts--making a canyon where once there was stone. What will it take for Shelby to learn the truth about her mother and their past? When does love stop being "expected" so that it can become the gift that it really is? Shelby might remind readers of one of O'Keeffe's flowers: it's possible to watch her for hours and still not penetrate her depths.

From Publishers Weekly

Narrated by a teenage girl fed up with her single mother's eccentricities, "this well-crafted novel... provides a fertile field of images, ideas and psychological profiles for readers to explore," said PW. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; 1St Edition edition (September 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038532278X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385322782
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,678,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Textured as the redlands, sensuous as an O'Keeffe painting, February 25, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ANGELS ON THE ROOF (Hardcover)

As a former English teacher I wish I had been able to use "Angels On The Roof" with my classes. What begins as a teenage comedy turns to a mystery, a search for past and future, a "Catcher in the Rye" for today's teens. But what is so moving is that like many classics, the novel can be read on many levels. It's not only a search for self but for sexual realization. It's not only a mystery as to why Shelby's mother keeps taking her from town to town in the middle of the night, it's a coming of age story. "Angels On The Roof" is as multi-layered as the canyons in which the story takes place. Her use of metaphor and image from red rock country to Georgia O'Keeffe pictures, from Salinger to Shakespeare makes "Angels On The Roof" an enriching experience for all, one that not only adds to the life of a young person, but adds to the experience of an adult. Humor, mystery, search for self, coming of age, literate, insightful. What more could a teacher ask of a book? Martha Moore, where were you when I needed you? (At least I have you now.)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A down to earth mistery, December 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: ANGELS ON THE ROOF (Hardcover)

I think every teenager should read this book or if you ever didnot know something about your family you will probably totally relateto Shelby. My english teacher gave us a book list and I just picked this one up without really knowing what it was about. I read it in 4 days. To me it did not seem like a book report book to me. Shelby does not know her father at all. She also goes to Texas for spring break, rather than the beach with her friend Roo and her family. In Texas she meets the woman who took care of her mother and other kids. She thinks this place is stupid because there is nothing out there and does not want to go in the beginning but she turns out to find a bunch more about her family than expected.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Angles, October 15, 2003

By 

Analicia (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angels on the Roof (Laurel-Leaf Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

Martha Moore constructs a distressing reality world filled with mystery in Angels on the Roof, set in an isolated town in Red Valley, Texas. Fourteen-year-old Shelby wants a normal life but doesn't know anything about her father and yet her eccentric mother refuses to talk about him. If worse then it already is her mother is always constantly moving herself and Shelby everywhere. Shelby just wants to stay put and have a normal teenage life. In next to no time she finds herself heading for Red Valley where she is introduced to unknown food, remote dirt paths, and strange people. One of those strange people is her mother's foster mother, Aunt Onie. Shelby realizes that Aunt Onie may hold the answer to her puzzling past to her unknown father and is determined to reveal her mother's secrets. But in Red Valley, Shelby finds out that the truth can be very risky, and some questions can hurt more then you think.
M. Moore has set an emotional path for the readers and herself. She handles the plot with such compassion and feeling, which captures the truth behind Shelby's past. M. Moore accomplishes the book with such artistic beauty, interweaving the blacks and whites together and completes the variety plot with an over worldly view. Though this book is not that long, it is very complex, and her expression are more like poetry then they are words. The story's appearance about uncovering the past will strike the attention of teenagers in astonishing ways.