Amazon.com Review
Ann Turner's lyrical
Learning to Swim will resonate with any adult or teenager who knows the shame and confusion of sexual molestation. Her memories of a family summer vacation keep coming back "like a skunk dog / on the porch / whining to get in." For Turner, telling her story to the world is what sets that skunk dog running. Divided into three sections, "sailing," "sinking," and "swimming," the book chronicles a holiday trip through the eyes of a very young girl--small enough to use a pink swimming ring in Dresser's Pond, play dress-up, and run races. It's Kevin, an older boy from down the street, with the "hands that grab," who takes her upstairs under the pretense of reading to her ("a secret time for us / and never, ever tell"), and she doesn't even know she can say no. In searingly simple language, Turner walks us through the little girl's forever-altered world, past the place where the truth comes out and healing can begin. (Ages 13 and older)
--Karin Snelson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Using spare vignettes laid out like poetry, Turner (Nettie's Trip South) recalls the summer she was six years old, when she was sexually abused by a neighbor. Convincingly assuming a child's voice, the narrative blends Annie's routine activities such as playing with dolls and swimming lessons with darker images of the neighbor boy's transgressions (the boy "telling me to touch him/ in a hard, breathless voice, and I didn't even know/ I could say/ no"). Because Annie lacks the vocabulary to describe what is happening to her, it is her actions that most often imply her emotions (she draws an angry picture, she brushes her teeth five times a day, she tries to hide). Turner also describes Annie's painful longing to confide in someone (she says of her father, "I wish my words/ were smoke/ he could breathe in") but she is silenced by fear of what the neighbor boy's might do if she tellsAuntil Annie's mother extracts the truth. Throughout the volume, the narration shifts, sometimes addressing the reader, a few times her abuser; sometimes speaking in the immediate present and others recalling the recent past. The narrative itself may be at times disjointed, but the emotional truth comes through clearly. If older readers can get past the youth of the narrator they will likely appreciate the poetic voice and courage of the heroine. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
