Sister Spider Knows All [Hardcover]

Adrian Fogelin (Author)

Book Description

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

A sensitive story of an adolescent girl uncovering her past and discovering the possibilities for her future.
For twelve-year-old Roxanne, there are two things in life she can count on: her beloved grandmother, Mimi, and her weekend job at the flea market where she helps Mimi buy and sell fresh produce and other people's junk to pay the household bills. This is her home and the people she knows and loves are here.
But outside this fragile weekend world, she's lost. A so-so student with few aspirations for higher education, she feels out of place at school. Stuck in the back of the pack with the other "lardbutts," Rox just tries to stay out of the way of the popular creeps in her class. And who is she anyway? Her teenage mother left when she was only three months old and her father's identity is a mystery. And no one, least of all Mimi, will talk about what happened.
But then her cousin John Martin brings home a girlfriend from college who has very different ideas about the way life works. And when Roxanne discovers her mother's teenage diary, she finds some painful but important answers to the unsolved questions of her past and the possibilities for a different future.
With gentle wit and an uncanny sensitivity, author Adrian Fogelin captures the fragility of life's certainties in this moving novel of an adolescent girl's struggles to find her way in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-Rox, 12, can count on one finger what she knows about her mother-her name, Helen. The girl's life consists of her grandmother, Mimi; her 23-year-old cousin, John Martin; and the "Show," a flea market where she helps sell grapes and other odds and ends to make ends meet at home. Then Lucy, John Martin's girlfriend, enters the picture. She comes from money and wants to change the way Rox's family looks at the world. Rox also finds the diary her mother wrote as a teenager and, with Lucy's help, begins to piece together a picture of the woman she never knew. Fogelin captures the fragility of this unique family with a lot of humor and great characters. The secondary figures add a lot to the development of Rox's personality, including the Show, which is a strong motivator in the protagonist's life. Set in Tallahassee, FL, the story has universal themes of coming of age and searching for one's identity. Reluctant readers will like the short, fast-paced chapters.
Shilo Halfen, Chicago Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-9. Rox, 12, wants to be skinny, do okay in school, and find the mother who left soon after Rox was born. She may feel imperfect, but she knows how lucky she is to have tough grandmother Mimi and her older cousin, John Martin, taking care of her, and she feels right at home in Tallahassee, where she helps Mimi run a flea market stall that sells everything from lawn statues (saints and gnomes and rhinos) to "vintage" dolls. Then John Martin brings home a rich girlfriend, Lucy, and everyone changes--including Lucy. Delivered in a wry voice that swings from laugh-out-loud funny to wrenching sadness, Rox's narrative is neither sentimental nor condescending; details of place, people, and class conflict emerge in plain, poetic imagery, for example, "the cough of a pickup starting" or the smoke signals from Mimi's Marlboro. But one plot device doesn't work; Rox just happens to find her mom's teenage diary and reads it, bit by bit, on her "private journey." Enough with the convenient "discovery" of personal diaries; story matters. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Peachtree Jr (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561452904
• ISBN-13: 978-1561452903
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,820,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Adrian Fogelin is the daughter of fiction writer, Maria Bontempi Fogelin, and grew up in a house littered with manuscripts. A slow early reader Fogelin took in stories as her mother read aloud, and in the lively exchange of family tales, giving her writing the freshness of the spoken word.

She is the author of seven novels for middle-grade and young adult readers, including the hugely popular "Crossing Jordan," and has won numerous awards including two Florida Book Award gold medals.

Although she might not pass the "Are you really a grownup?" test, Fogelin definitely gets kids, from the way they talk to the things they yearn for. She is a frequent visitor to schools and libraries all over the counry where she shares her love of writing and story.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book, February 21, 2006

By 

Dr. S. "renaissance person" (Mountain West, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sister Spider Knows All (Hardcover)

This book is about life. It's a lot better than the reviewers let on. Sure the diary is a device, but the diary itself paints such an interesting portrait of how we come to be who we are, it's very successful in the end. The storylines suck you in; the book reads easily while discussing life and the decisions we make. Kids can understand this book but the book does not talk down to them. Get it for your kids!