Living with her father and sister in a trailer on Welsh Mountain, twelve-year-old Maizie comes to terms with her mother's decision to leave the family four years ago.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6?In this poignant first novel, Maizie Musser, 12, is trying to come to terms with her mother's desertion of her family. The girl ably cares for her little sister and their alcoholic, mine-worker father while experiencing the usual feelings of adolescence. Determined to fulfill her dream of owning a strawberry roan pony, she takes a summer job at the Blue Moon Nursing Home, where old Amelia Skiles fills the role of the grandmother she has always wanted. The Blue Moon is also where, ultimately, a staff worker arranges for her to get a pony. She finally hears from her mother and realizes that she will never return. Facing this, Maizie writes her a cathartic letter that she stores in a memory box. Fine writing, engaging characters, memorable scenes, and humorous moments mark this novel. Its flaws include a heroine who's too good to be true and some underdeveloped story elements. While Maizie is presented as an accepting child buoyed by her Christian faith, which, unfortunately, she expresses in platitudes, readers may not be satisfied with her response to her mother's heartlessness. They will also be skeptical of her father's vows to give up drinking and smoking, and will wonder how Maizie will manage to keep it all together, and care for a horse, too!?Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 4^-8. Maizie creates wish books: among them, a Baby Brother Wish Book, a Horse Wish Book, and a Mama Wish Book, the latter peopled by beautiful women in aprons, surrounded by adoring children. But the Mama Maizie really wishes for is the one who named her little sister Grace so that when she says the girls' names together, it sounds like "Amazing Grace." Mama is the sparkling redhead who ran off four years earlier, leaving Maizie to care for her sister and a grieving father who drinks too much. But Maizie is resilient. She begins work at a nursing home to earn money to buy a horse and help pay the electric bill. She also begins writing letters to her mother in an effort to understand how a mother could leave her children. Although the book starts slowly, Maizie becomes a memorable character. In less talented hands, Maizie's father would be despicable. Here, he is sad and oddly lovable. Her aunt, a free spirit who darts in and out of the family's life, is a breath of fresh air, not selfish. Even Maizie's mother, while depicted as short-sighted and immature, is viewed as a bad mother, yes, but not a bad person. Yet, it is Maizie whom readers will learn from and remember. In her final letter to her mother, Maizie declares, "I'll be fine. I'm tougher than I look." We should all be that tough! Frances Bradburn
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I'm an author of books for children and teens, and I teach writing workshops and do author presentations. For a LOT about me, please see www.lindaoatmanhigh.com
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