Sights [Hardcover]

Susanna Vance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2001

Baby Girl sees the future from the womb, and it's clear the Fifties hold more for her than Elvis Presley and life in a tumble-down trailer.

From the start, Baby Girl believes she's beautiful and special because her beautiful and special Momma tells her so. The two are close as crossed fingers—and it's a good thing, because Baby Girl's Sight never warns her what her treacherous father will do next. She and Momma must flee into the night. In the distant town of Cot, each contributes to the family fortune with her own gift—Momma at the sewing machine, Baby Girl predicting futures. In the peace of that summer, Baby Girl's confidence grows robust as her sturdy little figure.

It's quite a shock, that first day of high school, when the kids don't find her as adorable as Momma does. Her confidence shrinks down to the size of a Lifesaver until she finds ways to make her differences work for her. An accordion, a quirky new friendship, and a romance with the same boy her enemy-cheerleader is after, return Baby Girl to her feisty best.

But nothing can prepare her for the final nightmare—the one that can forever end her magical, hard-knock journey toward growing up.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reminiscent of Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy, Susanna Vance's Sights is awash in magic realism, humor, and the familiar challenges of adolescence. Baby Girl, a human, was birthed by a vet after more than 11 months in the womb. She also remembers the whole thing, as she is blessed/cursed with the Sight, a stronger blend of the fortune-telling powers her Latvian great-great-Aunt Lubmilla used to have. Baby Girl's loving bond with her blonde bombshell mother is powerful and downright heartwarming. Her father, on the other hand, wants her dead. After he tries to drown his 13-year-old daughter in the creek, her mom rescues her, whispering, "It's not your fault, Baby Girl, your dad just don't like you and now I got to choose." They drive off in his '45 Chevy to make a new life and never look back.

Despite the fact that Baby Girl's father lurks "like deadly tadpoles in the dark watery moments before sleep," this fine, funny novel soars and swoops as joyfully as its heroine. Baby Girl overcomes her newfound status as the unpopular new kid on the block with the help of new friends, her devoted mom, her waveringly robust self-confidence, and an accordion. Sights is about finding your voice, coming of age, first kisses, love, making friends--and about the past and the future and how it all ties together. All in all, a wonderful, smart, folksy, even charming novel that will no doubt appeal to teens and adults alike. (Ages 13 and older) --Karin Snelson

From Publishers Weekly

Set around 1960, this commanding debut novel of eccentric outsiders shaking things up in a small town features a narrative voice of startling originality. From the beginning, it's unclear how much Baby Girl can be trusted; she says she was in the womb for 11 and a half months and remembers being delivered in a veterinarian's office. Her father, she reports with undampened spirits, has tried several times to kill her. When Baby Girl is 13, a particularly brutal attack opens her mother's eyes, and the two of them flee. They settle in tiny Cot, apparently named for the apricots it produces, and rely on their special skills: her mother sews party dresses and Baby Girl, who can see the future (though she doesn't always interpret her visions correctly), does a reading with every fitting. But when Baby Girl starts high school (the school motto: "Where Boys Are Athletes and Girls Are Apricots"), her perceptions of herself are overthrown and the audience is challenged to form a new picture, too. Baby Girl's naivete is by turns hilarious and poignant. She describes her friend Selda as "the only known mulatto in Cot. Meaning she was one part Negro and one part Crustacean, same's the rest of us." The story often reads like up-ended Southern gothic with furtive romances, impassioned jealousy, more murder attempts, all relayed through Baby Girl's own loopy perspective. And the author's delivery of her message that the future is not what Baby Girl can forsee but what she can make of it is as fresh as can be. Ages 12-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; 1St Edition edition (March 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385327617
• ISBN-13: 978-0385327619
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,468,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Young Adult Book 2002, April 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Sights (Hardcover)

At our school, we are encouraged to read all the American Library Association nominations for Best Young Adult Book. Sometimes they are predictable or written more for children than high school students. Sights was written for smart kids that identify more with the stuggle to grow up than with try outs for cheerleader. Baby Girl is just an awesome person who makes friends with the town window-peeker and general rebel, Selda. I couldn't get enough of these two and the adventures of their eveyday life. I hope Susanna Vance writes a dozen more novels for readers like me.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BABY GIRL RULES!, April 16, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Sights (Hardcover)

MY SISTER LET ME READ THIS BOOK. SHE'S IN HIGH SCHOOL AND I'M IN SEVENTH GRADE. SHE LOVED IT AND SO DID I. MY MOTHER IS GOING TO READ IT NEXT. TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN TO BABY GIRLS BUT SHE JUST ROCKS ON. IF I HAD TO MOVE TO A NEW SCHOOL OR HAD A DAD LIKE HERS, SHE'D BE MY MODEL FOR HOW TO SURVIVE. SHE'S COOL LIKE MY SISTER. SHE RULES!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual, unpredictable story line, August 16, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sights (Hardcover)

Baby Girl has an unusual name and unusual ability to see the future, and her mother dotes on her. When they flee her abusive father to begin a new life, Baby Girl finds new talents to take her to a new school, friends, and a beginning which offers new challenges as well. An unusual, unpredictable story line.