Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush [Paperback]

Virginia Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1983

Why had he come to her, with his dark secrets from a long-ago past? What was the purpose of their strange, haunting journeys back into her own childhood? Was it to help Dab, her retarded older brother, wracked with mysterious pain who sometimes took more care and love than Tree had to give? Was it for her mother, Vy, who loved them the best she knew how, but wasn't home enough to ease the terrible longing?

Whatever secrets his whispered message held, Tree knew she must follow. She must follow Brother Rush through the magic mirror, and find out the truth. About all of them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a superb book, convincing and profoundly affecting.” —Publishers Weekly

 

“. . . Just read the first page, just the first paragraph, of Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush. Then stop—if you can.” —The New York Times Book Review

 

“Few writers for young people are as daring, inventive, and challenging to read as Virginia Hamilton.” —The Horn Book

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

Virginia Hamilton's books have won many awards and honors. One of these, the first book ever to win both the John Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, M.C. Higgins, the Great, was also the recipent of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. The Planet of Junior Brown was a Newbery Honor Book in 1971, and four of Virginia Hamilton's other books have been named Notable Children's books by the American Library Association.

Ms. Hamilton is married to Arnold Adoff, who is a distinguished poet and anthologist. They live with their two children in Ohio.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Amistad (October 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380651939
• ISBN-13: 978-0380651931
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #433,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Virginia Esther Hamilton was born, as she said, "on the outer edge of the Great Depression," on March 12, 1934. The youngest of five children of Kenneth James and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton, Virginia grew up amid a large extended family in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The farmlands of southwestern Ohio had been home to her mother's family since the late 1850s, when Virginia's grandfather, Levi Perry, was brought into the state as an infant via the Underground Railroad.

Virginia graduated at the top of her high-school class and received a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs. In 1956, she transferred to the Ohio State University in Columbus and majored in literature and creative writing. She moved to New York City in 1958, working as a museum receptionist, cost accountant, and nightclub singer, while she pursued her dream of being a published writer. She studied fiction writing at the New School for Social Research under Hiram Haydn, one of the founders of Atheneum Press.

It was also in New York that Virginia met poet Arnold Adoff. They were married in 1960. Arnold worked as a teacher, and Virginia was able to devote her full attention to writing, at least until daughter Leigh was born in 1963 and son Jaime in 1967. In 1969, Virginia and Arnold built their "dream home" in Yellow Springs, on the last remaining acres of the old Hamilton/Perry family farm, and settled into a life of serious literary work and achievement.

In her lifetime, Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres that spanned picture books and folktales, mysteries and science fiction, realistic novels and biography. Woven into her books is a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as they helped define the lives of African Americans. Virginia described her work as "Liberation Literature." She won every major award in youth literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It is a great book for those who love the supernatural., February 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Paperback)

The book Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush was very likeable. I enjoyed it especially because of the supernatural in it. The ghost in it was described in such detail that it seemed as if you were standing there in the room viewing it. I also enjoyed the book because its main character was a teenage girl with many responsibilities. If you are a teenage girl, you are sure to be able to relate to this book. Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush was also a good book for anyone who is dealing with a death in their family, especially for someone who was really close. I could share the girl's pain in the book because I knew what it was like. The book doesn't bring you down, it just shows how things work out in the end. If you enjoy the supernatural, have experienced a death in your family, or you are a teenage girl with many responsibilities, then I strongly recommend this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Book Of Brother Rush, February 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Paperback)

I thought that the book"Sweet Whispers Brother Rush" deserved 5 stars because it is a great love novel but at the same time you can't put it down. It is deffinetly one of the best books I ever read and more than a 1 time read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars moving blend of the supernatural and the real, March 18, 2009

By 

Margaret Johnston (Seabeck, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Paperback)

When Teresa first notices the handsome stranger out on the street, she falls hard for him. Several weeks later, he appears in her apartment, and it's only then that she knows that he's a ghost, Brother Rush. He takes Tree and her mentally challenged brother Dab on journeys into the past, and slowly Tree realizes in these glimpses of the past, Brother Rush may be telling her something about her own present.

Hamilton's writing is wonderfully lucid and descriptive, showing Tree's thoughts in a language and idiom that perfectly express her character. Here's a passage I especially liked, from Tree's first meeting with Brother Rush in her apartment:

"The sweatshirt she had on couldn't keep her warm. Yet she was aware of the moment when the cold turned into something she could live with. Fear was sealed inside her, like a tatter of paper from her ream. And if you opened the tatter, it would read: This is all the scared I can get.

The categorizing part of my brain wants to say that this is fantasy, because it's a ghost story. I suppose technically it is, but it's so rooted in reality that the supernatural doesn't feel especially fantastic. It's simply a book about people, about Tree's relationships with her brother and her mother, who has to work so hard to keep the family going that she's rarely there, leaving Tree to take care of herself and Dab. It's a bittersweet book, full of loss and sadness, yet also full of love and hope.