How I Saved My Father's Life (and Ruined Everything Else) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–7—Madeline Vandermeer wants to become a saint. She's already performed two miracles (moving a glass without touching it and having a premonition of her father's avalanche accident), so she figures she's well on the way—even though she isn't Catholic. She begins attending mass regularly, reads up on the lives of saints, writes to the Pope, and practices suffering. The suffering part is easy: her parents have divorced, and she is no longer able to take ballet class in Boston, an hour's drive from her Providence, RI, home. Also, Madeline harbors anger toward her mother, believing that Dad left because Mom is not sophisticated and beautiful like his new wife, Ava Pomme. However, during a family trip to Italy, Madeline comes to appreciate her mother for being all the things Ava is not. Hood's book is scattered, with minor plotlines trailing throughout. Some are dropped and others solved rather abruptly, but the overall story of Madeline's attempt to reconstruct her life after divorce comes together as she reaches a place of understanding: "This wasn't the life I would have chosen for myself. But I saw that my choices lay ahead of me. In this matter, my parents had decided. They had fallen away from each other, and I would forever be somewhere stretched between them." Hopefully readers won't become lost in the inconsequential and miss the touching story of how one girl deals with the breakup of her family.—Heather E. Miller, Homewood Public Library, AL
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Product Description

Twelve-year-old Madeline believes she can perform miracles. And her biggest one to date is saving her father from an avalanche. But, unmiraculously, he divorces Madeline's mother after his recovery, writes a book about the avalanche, becomes a celebrity, and marries Ava Pomme, a renowned tart maker.

When he leaves, Madeline is left with her mother, who is slowly coming undone; her hypochondriac little brother, who spends his days worrying about air-bag safety; a house that is falling apart around her; and no clue how to perform the miracle that will fix it all.

Amidst ballet lessons, insufferable recipe experiments for her mother's Family magazine column, and a life-changing trip to Italy, Madeline learns the true meaning of faith and family in this moving novel by acclaimed author Ann Hood.

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Press (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439928192
• ISBN-13: 978-0439928199
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #767,239 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An AMAZING Book!, February 5, 2008

A Kid's Review

This is one of the most incredible books I've ever read! Madeline is totally like one of your friends--and her story is so good. She's brave and strong and trying to make a miracle for her parents to stay together. But there is so much she doesn't understand and her mom is so cool about it. It really makes your heart warm. All of my friends are reading it right now.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A quirky and fun read, July 31, 2008

By	Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Madeline Vandermeer decides to become a saint after she performs a miracle or two when she is 11. Her significant miracle (the other one involved moving a glass of water across a table by brain power alone) happens when her journalist father travels to Idaho by himself. One night during his trip, Madeline is awakened by a man's voice repeating her name. She falls asleep again to dream of snow in Idaho, and wakes up convinced that her father is in danger of being killed by an avalanche.

Madeline dresses and slips out to hurry to a Catholic church, where she prays for God to save her father. When she finally arrives home, she is greeted by the news that her father has survived a horrendous avalanche. From that moment on, Madeline is convinced that she is on an inevitable path to sainthood.

Her father arrives home a changed man. He seems depressed and says he needs to spend time working in New York. In fact, he becomes famous after writing about surviving the avalanche. For once, their family seems to be headed for financial stability. But then both parents break the news to Madeline and her little brother, Cody: they are getting divorced, and Dad is moving to New York City.

Madeline is sure that when she performed her big miracle, she also ruined the rest of her life. She is convinced that she can right this situation by performing just one more miracle. But in the meantime, as she writes letters to the Pope and befriends a girl in a large Italian Catholic family, she blames her mother for what has happened to the family. Mom is seriously depressed, barely coping, and bewildered by Madeline's sudden fascination with a religion foreign to her own family.

Madeline continues with her belief that she can fix everything by performing another miracle, despite the fact that her father remarries. His new wife, Ava Pomme, is a well-known gourmet tart baker, and they have a baby girl named Zoe. In fact, this new family, in Madeline's eyes, is a real family, while the fractured group of Mom, Madeline and Cody is no longer a family at all --- just an unhappy group who happens to live together. Madeline yearns to be a part of her father's family, who is unavoidably seen on television shows such as "Oprah" where the avalanche survival story is recounted repeatedly.

When Mom announces that the magazine she writes food columns for will send the three of them to Italy on vacation, Madeline's dad announces that he, Ava and Zoe will also be in Italy. Madeline and Cody spend vacation time with both parents --- and Madeline discovers the most unexpected miracle of all.

Madeline, Cody and their mother are appealing characters, and I empathized with Madeline's heartbreak and anger. Although some of the people in her life seem a little less well-rounded and a few story threads (such as Madeline's ballet) feel a bit flimsy, readers will be compelled to find out how Madeline's story concludes.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, May 13, 2008

By	TeensReadToo.com "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

Twelve-year-old Madeline Vandermeer is on her way to becoming a bona fide saint. Oh, she's not religious or anything, and her family never goes to church, but she's already performed two miracles. The first was when she slid a glass of water across the kitchen table by only thinking about it. The second was when somebody called her name in the middle of the night, and she woke up with a terrible premonition that her father, on a writing assignment in Idaho, was in danger. After spending a day deep in prayer, she learned that he was one of only two people to survive an avalanche.

However, after her second miracle, everything else in her life goes downhill. Her father, now rich and famous from his harrowing experience, divorces her mother, moves into a posh apartment in uptown New York, and marries Ava Pomme, a sophisticated woman famous for her apple tarts. Soon, they have their own daughter, and Madeline and her little brother, Cody, are forced to travel between the two parents.

Madeline adores Ava and the feeling of once again being part of a family, if only for a weekend. How different Ava is from her own boring mother, who cooks disgusting food for her cooking column and embarrasses Madeline just by being there. If her mom hadn't been so ordinary, crying and scatterbrained over the simplest things, then maybe Madeline's father would have stayed. Determined to find some solace from her life, Madeline concentrates on ballet and her journey into sainthood, although that journey may not lead where she expects.

I absolutely gobbled up this book. Even though Madeline's treatment of her mother sometimes disgusted me, I found her reactions, opinions, and character flaws to be incredibly lifelike and endearing. Although I am not religious or from a divorced family, I found this book to be most enjoyable, and highly recommend it to any preteen girl.

Reviewed by: Allison Fraclose