Cissy Funk [Hardcover]

Kim Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

How many times can your family let you down?

All the time, if you're Cissy Funk. It's bad enough that her father left the family to find work in Denver. After all, the Depression has hit the Colorado plains hard, leaving nothing but dust and empty farms behind. What makes it all worse is that he left Cissy and her brother alone to take care of their mother, Rose. Cold and Violent, Rose seems to hate Cissy with a passion. What Cissy can't figure out is why.

In the middle of the darkest moment in her life, when Rose leaves bruises on her every day, Cissy's aunt Vera comes to town. Vera is the only bright spot on the horizon. But Vera, too, has her secrets and her troubles. Just when Cissy feels that everything is working out for her at last, her whole world falls apart again. But Cissy Funk is an amazing girl, and she'll use every remarkable ounce of will and spirit she has to make the best out of the worst situation yet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First-time author Taylor admirably evokes the dusty, gritty aura of Depression-era Colorado, but strains with her soap opera-ish story of a dysfunctional family's struggles. The novel opens as 13-year-old Cissy hides from her abusive mother, fearing a beating for something she didn't even do. Cissy's baby sister, it eventually emerges, died in infancy, and grief has rendered their mother dangerously unstable. Cissy's father has moved away, and Cissy's older brother, Jonas, keeps vowing to leave, too. Then sophisticated, beloved Aunt Vera arrives on the scene. After Vera witnesses her sister-in-law brutally attack Cissy, she whisks Cissy off to Denver, where her father lives. But her father doesn't want her, and Vera, now penniless, is hesitant to raise a child on her own. Few of the characterizations go beyond the superficial, and when potentially shocking family secrets (about Vera's sexuality and Cissy's parentage) finally emerge, they have been so heavily foreshadowed and are so easily accepted by Cissy that they make little impact on readers. Ages 10-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-9-Cissy doesn't understand why she can't do anything right. She only knows that her mother's mind has worked strangely since baby Violet's death, but wonders why she is always being punished and her older brother is not. Seeking refuge in the town movie hall when the threat of physical violence becomes too real, the 13-year-old loses herself in dreams of life the way the stars portray it. When Aunt Vera visits and sees her niece's horrible bruises, she decides that the two of them will live with her brother (Cissy's supposed father) in Denver. His blatant refusal to help is unfathomable to Cissy, and she is further devastated when Vera strangely wavers and allows her brother to return Cissy to her bleak and dangerous former life. Once again, she must battle to reestablish trust in other humans in order to survive. In the end, it is revealed that Vera had become pregnant with Cissy when she was a teenager and that her domineering brother insisted that she give the baby to him and his wife to raise. Finally, Vera stands up to him and takes Cissy away from her abusive situation to live with her and her lover, Maxine. Taylor nails small-town agrarian Dust Bowl life in the '30s. Everything from grape NEHIs to the music to the town socials complete with busybodies neatly fits. While the denouement seems rushed when compared to the richly detailed beginning, this is a minor flaw in an otherwise well-plotted novel.
Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 211 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (April 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060290412
• ISBN-13: 978-0060290412
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,325,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kim Taylor was born in Denver, Colorado. She spent most of her childhood and adult life living on California's Monterey Peninsula (with short stretches in Los Angeles, CA and Boulder, CO). She currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

She holds a bachelor's degree in Drama from University of California, Irvine, and a masters degree in Special Education, Option: Orientation and Mobility for the Blind from California State University, Los Angeles. She taught blind and visually impaired adults for seven years, and now teaches at Heald College, Portland. While in Los Angeles, she co-founded and acted in an award-winning theatre company. She facilitates workshops through PDXWriters on the Craft of Fiction.

She has recently completed a mainstream novel, THE BAY. She is the author of the YA novels CISSY FUNK and BOWERY GIRL. Cissy Funk (HarperCollins) was honored with a 2002 Willa Cather Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Bowery Girl (Viking) was listed as a Best Reads for Teens by the New York Public Library.

Visit her website at www.krtaylor.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A storyline that remains captivating to the end., July 21, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Cissy Funk (Library Binding)

Narcissus Louise Funk, better known as ?Cissy?, is a young teen scared to death of her mother. I'm not exaggerrating, she is really frightened and she has reason. Living with her brother Jonas and their mother in Depression-era Colorado, Cissy spends her days doing farm chores and attempting to please thier mother. Everything Cissy does, she does in an effort to forestall the rages that whirl around in her mother?s head, not unlike the sudden dust storms her mother is certain will come if Cissy and Jonas leave her by herself.

Cissy desperately misses her father. He left the family immediately after the burial of Violet, Cissy?s and Jonas? baby sister. Before Violet dies, or at least in Cissy's memory, her mother was warm and caring and and her father was attentive. In short, the Funks were an intact, functioning and "normal" family.

But now everything is different. Cissy?s mother idealizes her husband; she obsessively believes he will return. Jonas knows better, though he indulges his mother. He also is gentle with Cissy. But as time goes by, Frank, Cissy?s father, never does arrive. However, his sister ,Vera, does. Aunt Vera comes for a visit and begins to make a real difference in the household: Cissy now has someone she hopes will look out for her. At first, Cissy?s mother is not as violent while Vera is around. Soon that changes, and it becomes obvious that Cissy?s mother has nothing but contempt for her sister-in-law Vera.

After witnessing a particularly brutal act, Vera steals Cissy away from the house and attempts to alleviate the pain and suffering that have marred her young life up to this point. Things never go as expected and people are never quite who we think they are. This book takes many circuitous routes before we know whether there will be stability and happiness in Cissy?slife.

Taylor tackles very adult themes and presents them to the young reader with respect and sensitivity, never in any way condescending. This is no fairy tale and there are no magical, happy, improbable endings here, but rather what you might expect from real life: tough choices, hurt and disappointment and realistic characters with the strength and ability to redeem their lives, taking responsibility for themselves and for others, as well. A wonderful effort by a first-time novelist with meticulous detail of the Depression era and a storyline that remains captivating to the end.

--- Reviewed by Michelle Andrews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book full of many emotions!, June 20, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Cissy Funk (Hardcover)

A great book about a thirteen year old named Cissy who lives with her mother Ma and her brother Jonas in the dirty thirties. This book has lots of drama. If you can't take a sad story this is not the book for you, If you can or you like grape NEHI's you will enjoy this fast read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring novel about a girl during the Great Depression., April 17, 2001

By 

Rebecca Herman (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cissy Funk (Library Binding)

Thirteen-year-old Cissy Funk longs for a better life than the one she leads, with an abusive mother in Depression-era Colorado. But most of all, she longs to be free: free of the poverty and bleakness of the Dust Bowl and free of her mother. When her Aunt Vera takes Cissy away to live with her in Denver, she believes she has found her escape, and that she will finally see her absent father again. But her father is too busy with his job for Cissy to live with him, and Aunt Vera's life seems to be made up of a tangled web of secrets and lies. And Cissy discovers that while Aunt Vera may seem to be wealthy and glamorous, the life she leads is as dirt-poor as the one Cissy thought she had left behind for good. And Aunt Vera's biggest secret is the worst one of all - and it will tear Cissy's life apart in ways her mother's violence never could. This was an inspiring novel about a determined, hopeful girl struggling to rise above sorrow and poverty.