Signs & Wonders [Hardcover]

Pat Lowery Collins (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Tucked away at boarding school, fourteen-year-old Taswell is undergoing an extraordinary transformation. She knows it's important, but she's not sure how to deal with it and who she should tell . . . certainly not her distant grandmother, who's busy with work, or her father, who has a new and pregnant wife. Isolated from friends and family, she looks for help and advice in surprising places. As Taswell discovers more about herself and the people around her, she ultimately finds salvation where she least expects it. Told entirely in letters, this startlingly original novel about a search for love and family is both heartbreaking and hilarious.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Picture book author Collins's first novel takes a startlingly provocative premise and clothes it in the familiar tropes of the YA novel. On the eve of the new millennium, 14-year-old Taswell believes that God has chosen her to give birth to a prophet. As the novel opens, Taswell is writing letters from a convent school where she's been sent because her guardian grandmother, Mavis, is busy traveling. Taswell's mother disappeared soon after her birth and her recently remarried father is a loving but distant presence. In her loneliness, Taswell turns to Pim, a guardian angel with a "misty green suit" and "glassy skin" whom she remembers from her early childhood. Taswell writes him letters that reveal both her alienation and her miraculous transformation (invoking other pivotal events that have happened to young people: "Think of Joan of Arc. Think of the Virgin Mary"). The resolution of this original plot is both surprising (neither consensual nor abusive sex is the cause of Taswell's condition) and at the same time disappointingly predictable (Taswell begins to heal only when an adult shows that she truly understands and cares). The epistolary form allows easy access to the protagonist's thoughts but not necessarily an easy identification with her. Taswell's sense of greatness (due to her special role), which separates her from her peers, may be off-putting to readers as well; yet they'll likely keep turning the pages to learn the outcome of the protagonist's unusual predicament. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-9-Taswell, 14, has been sent to a remote, mountaintop Catholic girls' school by her grandmother. Her story is plausibly told through letters to and from her family, and to Pim, whom the teen believes is a cherubim who will intercede on her behalf only if she is worthy. She also believes that, like the Virgin Mary, she has been chosen to bear a prophet for the new millennium. Gaining weight and guarding her secret for months, Taswell gradually detaches from everyone, enthralled by ritual and religious fervor. Only Grace, a novitiate, and Madeline, a fellow student whom Taswell is convinced has been called to assist her, make any contact. Interventions by the school staff, including a therapist, are ineffective. When a doctor's examination finally determines that Taswell is not pregnant, but delusional, her family is summoned to deal with her. Ah, the family: her high-powered New York editor/grandmother who raised Taswell but has invested neither time nor emotion in the process; her wealthy but distant father, who, motivated by his new wife, seeks to establish closer contact; and her pregnant, kind and understanding stepmother, the only character who offers the young woman the unconditional love she craves. Serious and disturbing, Taswell's narrative is initially attention grabbing, but drags during the second trimester as the plot labors to conform to the nine-month school year/pregnancy time frame. Taswell and her dysfunctional family are convincingly frustrating and psychologically rich characters. Together with the plot, this limits the readership to serious, capable readers.
Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Jr. High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (October 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395971195
• ISBN-13: 978-0395971192
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,776,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

From my earliest years I thought of myself as a poet and painter. As a child in Hollywood, I also acted on the radio.

At twenty, I graduated from the University of Southern California, married,and soon moved to New England. It wasn't until the youngest of our five children entered school that I began writing picture books, and in the past ten years I've gravitated to writing young adult novels as well. My books include the Reading Rainbow selection, "I Am An Artist", and the recent sequel, "I Am a Dancer". My newest historical novel is "Hidden Voices, The Orphan Musicians of Venice", published by Candlewick Press and a finalist for the Boston Author's Club 2010 Children's Book Award. It was also nominated for a Cybil Award, and was chosen for ALA's 2010 Rainbow List. My young adult novel in free verse, "The Fattening Hut", won the Boston Author's Club 2004 Julia Ward Howe Award and was a Book Sense Pick and ALA Amelia Bloomer choice. "Daughter of Winter", set in Essex, MA in 1849, is scheduled for publication in 2010, and a picture book, "The Deer Watch", is also forthcoming from Candlewick. A chapbook of my poems, "The Quiet Woman Wakes Up Shouting", is one in a series of chapbook originals published by Folly Cove Books. I teach in Lesley University's MFA program in creative writing and live and work in Gloucester, MA. My web site is www.patlowerycollins.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING, April 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Signs & Wonders (Hardcover)

This book is truly original and hard to put down, yet also a book that one doesn't want to finish! Told through letters, the author brings us into the thoughts and heart of an adolescent girl who is suffering from a lack of attention from parents, a grandmother, and others in her life. How Taswell deals with her pain is both surprising and touching. And the person who comes into her life as a positive influence is equally unexpected.

The characters are complex and well developed, and along the way Collins enriches the story with exceptional humor and wit.

This is a wonderful book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo!, March 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Signs & Wonders (Hardcover)

Once in a while a book comes along that you can't put down and you'll never forget. Signs and Wonders is just such a book. It's brilliant. Told entirely in letters that bring the characters to life and keeps the pages turning quickly, almost too quickly for I hated to reach the end. Taswell, the main character, takes us on a fantastical emotional journey, which ends quite beautifully back in reality. Her wild imagination driven by the need for something as simple and as complicated as love. A must read and like Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, destined to become a classic.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, February 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Signs & Wonders (Hardcover)

This was a really great book. The story was told entirely in the letter correspondence of Taswell and her grandmother, father, and guardian spirit, Pim. The storyline was very gripping and different, as Taswell finds out that she has been chosen for a miracle: she is pregnant; a virgin birth. All of the characters are well developed, from Taswell's chattering classmate Madeline to her father's new girlfriend to the interrogating school counselor. This book is a must for anybody.