At the age of fifteen, a girl who has spent most of her life moving around the country with her father and brother remembers her real name, Sherica, and is moved to search the Internet to learn the truth about her mother and her own past.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 6–9—Suspicious of her family's secretive lifestyle, 15-year-old Sherica finally decides to investigate her past. Just why do she, her older brother, and their father move so frequently, always assuming new names and changing their hair color? Why do Daddy's stories about her mother keep changing? Why don't they have family photos, cell phones, or Internet access? She summons up the courage to apply for her first library card so she can use the computer to search online. When she discovers a picture of herself at age five accompanied by the message, "Help this girl's desperate mother find her," she runs from the building in shock. With the help of a geeky teenage library employee, who learns her secret when he assists the next computer user, Sherica gradually decides to contact her mother while attempting to avoid getting her father into trouble with the law. The plot of this book is ridiculously unbelievable and the characters are flat and undeveloped. Because the topic of child abduction is of great interest and the author is known for other, far superior works, many youngsters will be drawn to this novel only to be disappointed. Those looking for a worthwhile read on this subject should stick with Caroline Cooney's perennially popular The Face on the Milk Carton (Delacorte, 1990).—Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Hard-boiled noir from the perspective of an overweight 15-year-old girl? Well, only in stretches, but Springer packs her prose with just enough attitude to overpower the thin plot. Sherica is our protagonist’s name—but, for a while, even that is in doubt. Along with her older brother, she has been constantly shuttled across the country by her father, and each new home brings a new hairstyle and a new fake name. These names she considers “fattening,” because she seems to grow bigger with each one. But this town is different: she meets Mason, a boy who works at the library, and he helps her discover that the tale her father has been telling about her mom all these years may not be true. Taking back her life will first require Sherica to reclaim her identity and sense of self-worth, and this gives the story a layer of optimism and meaning missing in many mysteries. “I am somebody,” she repeats over and over, and the readers will appreciate how the statement comes to have multiple meanings. Grades 6-9. --Daniel Kraus
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More About the Author
"Conform, go crazy, or become an artist." I have a rubber stamp declaring those words, and they pretty much delineate my life. Conforming was the thing to do when I was raised, in the fifties. Even my mother, who spent her days painting animal portraits at an easel in the corner of the kitchen, tried to conform via housecleaning, bridge parties, and a new outfit every spring. My father, who was born into a British-mannered Protestant family in southern Ireland, emigrated to America as a young man and idolized the "melting pot" because at last he fit in. Once in a rare while he recited "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" or told a tale of a leprechaun, but most of the time he was an earnest naturalized American who expected exemplary behavior of his children. My mother was a charming Pollyanna who would not entertain negative sentiments in herself or anyone around her. As their only girl and the baby of the family, I was coddled, yet hardly ever got a chance to be other than excruciatingly good.
My "conform" phase lasted right into adulthood. When I was thirteen, my parents bought a small motel near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and I spent most of my teen years helping them make beds and clean rooms. I did not date until I went to college -- Gettysburg College, all of seven miles from home. it was the height of the sixties, and I grew my hair long, but eschewed pot, protests, and "happenings." Instead, I married a preacher's son who was himself conforming by studying for the ministry. Within a few years I was Rev. Springer's wife, complete with offspringers, living in a country parsonage in southern York County, PA.
Here beginneth the "go crazy" phase.
Because I had never been allowed any negative emotions, I began to hear "voices" in my head. First they whispered "divorce" (not permissible), and later they hissed "suicide". They scared me silly. I couldn't sleep; images of knives and torture floated in front of my eyes even during the daytime; something roared like an animal inside my ears; my wrists hurt; I saw blood seeping out of the walls; panic jolted me like a cattle goad out of nowhere. Is it necessary to add that I was clinically depressed? The doctor gave me Valium and sent me to a shrink. The shrink took me off the Valium and told me I had a problem with anger. (No duh.) The next doctor zombied me on the numbing antidepressants which were available at that time. The next shrink said I had an adjustment problem. And so on, for several years, during which I somehow managed to stay alive, take care of my kids, handle the vagaries of my husband, sew clothing and grow vegetables to get by financially, cook, can preserves, show up at church, do mounds of laundry and publish "The White Hart" and "The Silver Sun"--yet not one of the doctors of shrinks ever suggested that I might be a strong person, let alone a writer. All of them were intent on "helping" poor little me "adjust" to being a housewife, mother, and pastor's wife.
Eventually I became resigned to the fact (as I perceived it) that I was an evil, sinful person with horrible things going on inside my head, and I stopped trying to fix me. I stopped going to doctors or therapists. Somehow I found courage--or desperation--to stop trying to conform or adjust or live a role.
"I am going to start taking an hour or two first thing in the morning to do my writing," I said to my husband.
"Fine," he said. He had reached the point where he would agree with whatever to humor the neurotic wife; to him it was just another of my brain farts. But to me it was the most important sentence I ever spoke. With that statement I stopped being a housewife who sometimes stole time to write, and I started being a writer.
Conform, go crazy--or become an artist.
By becoming a writer--by becoming who I truly was--I became well.
It was so simple. Although it did take years, of course; it takes a long time for good things to grow. Trees. Books. Me. Odd thing about books; they not only nourish growth but show it happening. In "The Black Beast, The Golden Swan" and many other of my early novels, you can see me dealing with the yang/yin nature of good and evil, struggling to accept my own shadow. In "Chains of Gold" and "The Hex Witch of Seldom" I start writing as a woman, no longer identifying only with male main characters. In a number of children's books I come to terms with my own childhood. And in "Apocalypse"--whoa, what a fierce, dark fantasy novel, the first thing I wrote after my income from writing enabled my husband to leave the ministry. I hadn't thought of myself as repressed when I was a pastor's wife, but obviously something broke loose when I shed that role. "Larque on the Wing"--whoa again, another breakthrough book that spiraled straight out of my muddled middle-aged psyche and took me places I'd never dreamed were in me.
It's been a long time since those days when I thought I was an evil person. I know better now, and I love and trust me even to the extent of writing "Fair Peril"--a more perilous novel than I knew at the time, interfacing all too closely with my life. Written two years before the fact, it foresees my husband's infidelity and my divorce. The most painful irony I've ever faced is that once I gained my selfhood, I lost my lifelong partner. He had supported me through episodes that would have sent most men screaming and running, but once I became well and strong, he transferred his loyalty to a skinny, neurotic waif all to similar to the young woman I once was. After supporting him through twenty-seven years of stinky socks, automotive yearnings, miscellaneous foibles, and the career change that put him where she could cry on his shoulder, I found this a bit hard to take. But I wouldn't go back to being Ms. Pitiful. Not for anything.
Now married to a rather remarkable second husband, after living 46 years in Pennsylvania I moved in 2007 to the Florida panhandle, where I spent a year living in a small apartment above the aforementioned husband's hangar in an exceedingly rural (swamps, egrets, snakes and alligators) airport. Now we have a real house about a mile from the airport on higher ground featuring tremendously tall longleaf pine trees with rattlesnakes and scorpions underneath them. Life is an adventure and I mean that sincerely.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who Are You?,
By
This review is from: Somebody (Hardcover)
SOMEBODY by Nancy Springer
When a proven, talented, award-winning writer like Nancy Springer has a new book out, it is wise to take notice. In her recent offering, SOMEBODY, we meet a girl who needs to be noticed, as well. As the novel opens, we do not know the name of the main character (MC) telling her story through first person narration, and we soon discover why. There is a mystery swirling around her and her family's need to move from two-bit town to another; and it takes a library nerd to help her get to the heart of the matter. (Don't worry, no spoilers in this review!) One of the main questions in this YA is, "Who am I really?" This is a question many teens ask themselves, and the main character is dealing with self-discovery on a variety of levels. Without giving any of the novel away, I can safely say her search for identity also incorporates her search for a name...one that suits her, that feels right. This novel is perfect for younger YA readers, and its accessibility and high-interest would make it suitable for older struggling readers. Springer takes this quest for identity with a well-developed MC and an interesting cast of supporting characters. She weaves imagery throughout, but not so subtly that it's missed by inexperienced readers. Although the book is not weighty in length and number of pages, its themes of friendship, belonging, family, self-worth and identity give it substance. The end of the book had me crying as I watched the MC grow and make choices leading to a satisfying end. Springer has some surprises in store for her readers and doesn't tip her hand too soon. I can't wait to share this with my middle school students (no language, sex, or violence here) and highly recommend this for older, reluctant readers, too. This book is available now through an indie bookstore near you or online. Published by Holiday House, Inc., Nancy Springer's SOMEBODY is a book that my students will pass around, recommend, and talk about in literature circles. (other reviews at my blog here: bit.ly/sn2Rj)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Straight-ahead plot makes a fast and fun read,
By
This review is from: Somebody (Hardcover)
This book kept me interested from page one, with a protagonist (her dad calls her "Blondie" at the moment) who is overweight and obviously smart, good-hearted and wryly funny. She knows something is not right, but her father and brother heartily discourage her from asking any questions. Thank goodness for the kindly woman at Handy Hardware and "Blondie's" new friend, Mason. (As an aside: she's 15 and she's never been to a public library? Poor thing!)
In a somewhat unusual move, the author foregoes most twists and turns, and spills the beans on a big surprise half-way through, but that made me even more interested in how things came out for our heroine. This book is aimed at young teens, and could be read in a day. Which is a good thing, since I don't think most readers will want to put it down.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating psychological mystery,
By
This review is from: Somebody (Hardcover)
"Somebody" begins with a multiple-choice list of ten names for the protagonist, a 15-year-old girl whose father changes her identity every time they move. "Blondie," as she is currently called, has never dared ask questions. One day she chats with a friendly woman in a hardware store and learns that public libraries have computers. For the first time, she can search the internet. "Blondie," whose real name is Sherica, tells her story in an unerring first-person narrative filled with psychological nuances. Why has Sherica never searched for information using the computers at school? Why does she let her father tell her what to do, say, even think? Does she really believe her mother abandoned her, as her father and brother claim? Readers must sift through the layers of Sherica's confused self-image in search of the truth--just as she herself must do.
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