It's summertime, and Katy and her mother are vacationing once again with other family members at Whitmarsh Point, Conn. After Katy reunites with her favorite cousin, Julie, the excited girls stumble upon some old letters addressed to Grandma Whitmarsh, along with a photo of Katy's mother in the company of some unidentified boys. Katy's prying leads them closer to the unsolved mystery--the painful truth that her mother was adopted at birth. Torn by feelings of betrayal, Katy's mother is determined to find her real family. Unwillingly, Katy accompanies her to face a fresh beginning: the expectations of and adjustments to a second family. Their quest leads them to the eccentric Lummis family, whose matriarch lives out her fantasies by aping glamorous Hollywood figures. Readers will enjoy Auch's ( Pick of the Litter ; Mom Is Dating Weird Wayne ) humor, although they may find her comedic touches at odds with the inherent seriousness of the subject at hand. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-- Katy Jordan lives for her visits to Whitmarsh Point in Connecticut with her grandmother and cousins, but this year's vacation ends abruptly when Katy finds a letter revealing that her mother, Linda, had been adopted. The discovery shocks Linda even more than it does Katy, and she leaves the family homestead in rage, hurt, and frustration, setting off with Katy to find her birth parents, whose identity she has just learned. Find them she does, and they are more than just a little odd. It is only when Katy and her newfound cousin run away that Linda begins to think of her daughter rather than herself. She returns to Whitmarsh Point, not because she has forgiven her adoptive mother for hiding the truth, but because Jewell, her overbearing birth mother, has become tiresome. Linda is consistently and sufficiently self-centered to make believable her rash actions and her oblivion to Katy's bewilderment and equal sense of loss. Because of Katy's first-person narration, however, adult motivations and thoughts are lacking. What should be the most telling conversations are not shared with readers: Linda's reconciliatory phone call to Mrs. Whitmarsh, which is explained in one sentence to Katy--we're going back--and her farewell to Jewell. An innovative idea with an appealing heroine, but one that is somewhat disquieting because the characters converse too little to make the situations meaningful to young readers or the resolution convincing.
-Trev Jones, School Library Journal
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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