10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Magical Experience For All Ages, March 28, 2009
This review is from: Lifting the Sky (Hardcover)
The greatest Young Adult novels are also some of the greatest novels in general. They are books which can be appreciated by all ages: read to a child, comprehended by a middle reader, related to by teens, and, perhaps most impressively, able to transport adults back to their youth. Mackie d'Arge's Lifting the Sky is one of those great novels. It deserves a place on the shelf next to such great coming of age stories as Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons and Kathleen Karr's The Cave.
Great novels rely upon great characters, vivid settings, and compelling action. Lifting the Sky has all of these.
Protagonist and narrator Blue is an almost-13-year-old girl whose ranch hand mother has kept her on the move, never staying in one place long enough to put down roots. Blue is a complex, compelling and quirky character with whom readers will instantly bond. It's clear d'Arge has based both Blue and Blue's mother on different aspects of her own character, and the result is two of the most interesting and genuine characters in Young Adult fiction.
Lifting the Sky's setting is equally authentic, as d'Arge lives on a Wyoming ranch and reservation much like Blue's. Readers interested in animals will adore Blue's encounters and rapport with the wild animals of the range, including antelope, coyotes and even wolves. And as Blue learns about cattle ranching and develops her veterinary skills, readers will be right there beside her. By the middle of the story, I was amazed at how much veterinary science I had picked up.
The action in Lifting the Sky is perfectly paced, as several story threads - Blue's quest for her long lost father, her relationship with a Native American boy searching for a mystical place, and her exploration of her own mysterious healing gifts - all come together in a breathtaking climax. By the end of the book, you will have lived a few months of Blue's life, growing, learning and changing right along with her. What more can one ask from a great novel?
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wondrous story for young and old, April 17, 2009
This review is from: Lifting the Sky (Hardcover)
I bought Lifting the Sky for myself, having been told it was a wonderful story. Although written as a young person's book, I found it to be an oldster's book, too. It was tender, uplifting and fun to read. I have loaned the book to my nine-year-old granddaughter who loves to read and who loves animals, and I have a pretty good feeling she and her mom are going to feel as good about this book as I do. I highly recommend it to the young and the old, anyone who, as does the granddaughter, loves to read and loves animals and people.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A walk back through childhood and the West, April 17, 2009
This review is from: Lifting the Sky (Hardcover)
Dear fellow readers,
this book is everything I expected and then some, coming from someone whom I have known since I was five years old. Her painting and tapestries are as beautiful as her writing. She is not a person one meets everyday but is rather extraordinary...I couldn't put the book down either once I started the journey. The relationship with the animal world, the antelopes, the rocks, cliffs, trees, stones and mountains and spirit all around us,that is the person I know. It was always the mystic quest with her...
In our youth she awakened me to the world of light written of in this story of which I knew absolutely nothing...and it changed my life forever. I see her in both Mam and Blue. For as long as I have known Mackie Darge, she has always been about Feng Shui long before it became fashionable...for her it was always about place,she always had an enormous need to be living surrounded by rugged, stark breath taking natural beauty and oceans of silence and solitude...whether it was sitting upon a hillside as a child in Turkey alone watching camel caravans winding along like ants far below or on top a mountain in a stone house in Crete...Where she was and her surroundings always came first ahead of every other consideration...as if she were drawn herself to holy ground...she was always true to herself...after growing up abroad, she finally found a home back home in the USA as wild as Meteora or Bahmia or any other sacred place on earth in Wyoming and ceased her worldwide rambling to become a full fledged rancher, a Westerner like she'd lived their all her life and what came before was only half remembered day dreams of long ago...the undaunting spirit of Blue and the respect she had for her own childhood and unique talents is a reflection of the author and it has been my privilege to be her friend through most of my life...I know that this is a book I shall reread every few years using it like a yardstick to measure the size of my spirit at any point in time...it is both sweet and poignant, and it speaks of first love, the pain of broken family and loss and abandonement and then picking new meaningful relations besides the ones we are born with and recovery and healing...and things which to be human we have all experienced...great read, writing as beautiful as a landscape painting...
Brian H. Appleton
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