Shadow Baby: A Novel [Hardcover]

Alison McGhee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2000

Clara first spies him through the crack in the stained-glass window of her church, lighting a string of handmade lanterns in the Adirondack woods. A lone old man, Georg Kominsky moves stealthily among the shadow world of his hanging, glittering creations.

In Alison McGhee's stunning novel Shadow Baby, eleven-year-old Clara is struggling to find the truth about her missing father and grandfather and her twin sister, dead at birth, but her mother steadfastly refuses to talk about these people who are lost to her daughter. When Clara begins interviewing Georg Kominsky for a school biography assignment, she finds that he is equally reticent about his own concealed history. Precocious and imaginative, the girl invents version upon version of Mr. Kominsky's past, just as she invents lives for the people missing from her own shadowy past.

The journey of discovery that these two oddly matched people embark upon is at the heart of this beautiful story about friendship and communion, about discovering what matters most in life, and about the search to find the missing pieces of ourselves. McGhee's prose glistens with shrewd truth and wild imaginings, creating a fine novel that will reverberate in the hearts and minds of readers long after the book is finished.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Loss, guilt and regret are conquered and transformed in McGhee's graceful second novel (after Rainlight), a poignant tale of family history regained. Events of her past year are narrated by 12 1/2-year-old Clara winter, who spells her surname with a lowercase "w" as "a rejection of winter, an acknowledgment of what winter really is and how it can kill." Though Clara's mother, Tamar, never speaks about the past, refusing even to name the father and grandfather Clara has never met, Clara knows she was born in a blizzard that probably killed her twin sister. Her grandfather, driving her mother to the hospital from their remote North Sterns home in upstate New York, took the wrong road and ran his truck into a ditch. Stranded, Tamar delivered her own babies, and only Clara survived. Obsessed by her mysterious past, Clara tries to create her own world, reading avidly, writing brilliant school reports on imaginary works, creating story lives for real people. When she meets a solitary old man who hangs his beautiful, hand-crafted lanterns in the dark Adirondack woods, she feels she has found a "compadre." Immigrant metalworker Georg Kominsky also knows the power of winter; as a youth, the lantern he left with his younger brother failed to guide the boy through a deadly snowstorm. Clara becomes Georg's apprentice in "the art of possibility," scavenging with him discarded tin cans he transforms into "objects of light." Gradually, gently, Georg points Clara toward the answers she craves, and teaches her to see beauty in the overlooked and forgotten, even in past tragedy. With a mix of deadpan humor and pathos, McGhee perfectly captures the voice of a sensitive, wise child on the cusp of adulthood, at once knowing and na?ve. Agent, Doug Stewart. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Clara Winter, 11, narrates this flashback about her friendship with elderly Georg Kominsky, an immigrant living in her upstate New York village. Their relationship begins as a school oral-history project, and the two form a bond over hot chocolate and cookie baking. Georg is a good match for Clara, who is anything but an ordinary child. She creates extravagant book reports for nonexistent books and makes up such vivid family history that she forgets it is fantasy. Mr. Kominsky teaches the girl to scavenge for discarded materials to make into useful and beautiful objects, like the intricately patterned lanterns he designs and hangs, lighted, throughout winter for the local people. Through their friendship, the child learns, "the art of possibility; and the possibility of beauty." They also share secrets. Clara yearns for her twin sister who died at birth, and for her grandfather whose mistake caused the twins to be born in a stranded car in a blizzard. Georg had to leave his injured brother in a blizzard on the trip to America and never saw him again. When Georg dies saving Clara from a fire in his trailer, his guidance enables her to talk to her mother about her twin and to bring her grandfather back into their lives. Clara's insights bring both introspection and humor to this skillfully told story about seeing and finding the possibilities in life.

Becky Ferrall, Stonewall Jackson High School, Manassas, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1st edition (April 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609606328
• ISBN-13: 978-0609606322
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,834,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alison McGhee is the New York Times bestselling author of SOMEDAY, LITTLE BOY, BYE-BYE CRIB, ALWAYS and A VERY BRAVE WITCH. Her other children's books include ALL RIVERS FLOW TO THE SEA, COUNTDOWN TO KINDERGARTEN, SNAP, and the JULIA GILLIAN series, about the adventures of a girl who lives in Minneapolis.

Alison is also an award-winning novelist of the adult novels WAS IT BEAUTIFUL? A NOVEL; FALLING BOY; RAINLIGHT; and the Today Show book club selection, SHADOW BABY.She lives in Minneapolis, MN.

You can find her at her website and also on Facebook under Alison McGhee, Author.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning!, April 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Shadow Baby: A Novel (Hardcover)

What a wonderful, wonderful book! Clara winter (you'll see why she spells her last name without a capital when you read the book) is an 11-year-old girl you'll never forget. She is precocious in her wordminded-ness, yet naive and childlike in her propensity for fantasy. In Shadow Baby, Clara goes on a search for her own history--her dead twin sister, her MIA grandfather, her phantom father. This book is stunningly written, both hilariously funny and achingly sad. Truly a literary feat. Love it love it love it.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange and wonderful, June 14, 2000

By 

Meg Brunner (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadow Baby: A Novel (Hardcover)

In contrast to what a reviewer above said, I'm always really GLAD when someone else starts their review with a synopsis of the plot. Everybody's perception of what happened in a novel is a little bit different -- some people see one thing as the novel's focus and others something else. It can tell you a lot about a novel to read several different descriptions of the story (unless they're all swiping their descriptions from the book jacket!). So, here's the book that *I* read when I read "Shadow Baby":

Novel about 11-year-old Clara Winter (who prefers having her last name pronounced without the capital letter -- "winter" -- which tells you quite a bit about her precocious character). When she is given a school assignment to interview an elderly person, she latches onto an old immigrant man living in a trailer, Georg. Clara's whole world is constructed of stories, so many of which she has invented herself that she can hardly remember what is true and what isn't. Through her friendship with Georg, Clara learns how to see the world in a new way -- to see everything without focusing on any one thing. And through that, she gradually begins to learn how to let go of her obsession with the past. This was a very touching novel about both a girl coming-of-age and the wisdom one can find in the strangest places -- in an illiterate old metalworker and in a mixed-up 11-year-old girl. Recommended!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing Story, October 20, 2004

By 

Theresa W (mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadow Baby (Today Show Book Club #14) (Paperback)

I found Shadow Baby to be a very engrossing story. Right from the very beginning, the "voice" of the little girl pulled me in. I wanted to know what happened to her baby sister, what happened to her father, grandfather...what would become of her friendship with "the old man".

We find Clara winter, our narrator, a very unique 11 year old. Her thoughts and actions are really more that of a 18 year old. However for me, I didn't mind, I just accepted this and read on. Clara is a girl who is questioning life. She wants to know what happened to her twin sister who died at birth, what the real story was. She tries to get her mother to give her answers on that & other subjects, most of the time to no avail. So she develops a friendship with an older neighbor and this seems to give her a bit of an outlet and she begins making up stories about her families life, and his life.

This book is unique in that it takes you on a journey, and you're not sure where this is leading a lot of the time. You want answers, the answers Clara is seeking, and you wonder if you'll ever get them. Or if you'll ever find out why Clara is the way she is. Over-all I enjoyed the "journey", I'm still left with a few questions...but this is definitely a book I won't forget any time soon!