Norma Fox Mazer, who lives in Montpelier, Vermont, has written nearly thirty novels and short-story collections for young adults. Her novels, including Missing Pieces, Out of Control, Girlhearts, and the Newbery Honor Book After the Rain, are critically acclaimed and popular among young readers for their portrayal of teens.
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Amazon.com Review
One moment 14-year-old Sarabeth Silver's life is all her own, quirky mom and all. The next minute, she's spinning out of control, her mother dead of a heart attack at 30, family friends debating who should take her in, her home rented to another family, her stuff in storage. And Sarabeth herself changes. She becomes jagged, cynical. Her funny, loyal friends stand by her side, but nothing is the same anymore. The loss of her mother, conversations with her new friend James, and her uncomfortable living situation with her mom's best friend, her husband, and their baby--in a one-bedroom apartment--inspire Sarabeth to embark (with great trepidation) on a journey to trace her mysterious roots. The town where her parents grew up--and were later shunned--reveals some very unexpected secrets that ultimately provide the starting place for Sarabeth's healing.
Continuing the story of Sarabeth begun in Silver, award-winning novelist Norma Fox Mazer plumbs the depths of adolescent souls. Girlhearts unflinchingly explores the unthinkable, refusing to drift into sentimentality or easy fixes. Mazer's keen eye for what is important makes her one of the finest, most tuned-in young-adult authors around. She is also the author of the Newbery Honor Book, After the Rain and many other fine titles for older readers. (Ages 12 to 16) --Emilie Coulter
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From Publishers Weekly
Exploring the aftermath of a family tragedy, this contemporary problem novel provides the intense psychological drama Mazer fans crave, but lacks the suspenseful edge of her After the Rain and Out of Control. The opening chapters will instantly command readers' sympathy and rapt attention, as narrator Sarabeth describes her young, widowed mother's heart attack and subsequent death. The pace slows considerably after the initial crisis has passed and the author focuses on the 13-year-old's misery. With Sarabeth's vision blurred by grief, readers will need patience to develop a clear sense of the minor characters, among them Sarabeth's loyal girlfriends, her new friend James and the adults who decide her future. As Sarabeth is placed in the overcrowded home of her mother's best friend and assigned a social worker, Mazer conveys the heroine's feelings of shock, numbness, loneliness and powerlessness with her usual authenticity. But there are few surprises here; from the moment Sarabeth explains that her parents were essentially disowned by their families, most readers will anticipate that an encounter with these previously unmet relatives will spur Sarabeth's emotional recovery. The strength of this novel lies in its intimate recognition of the way adolescents think and feel. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
kindle_edition edition.
Gr. 6-9. The girls from Mazer's
Silver (1995) are here in a new story that mixes sadness and strength in equal measure. Sarabeth Silver knows her life: her mom, Jane, cleans houses; her friends have more money; and her parents' families abandoned them when Jane became pregnant at 16. Sarabeth's dad died when she was a baby. When Sarabeth's mother dies suddenly, the reader, like Sarabeth, is plunged into a maelstrom. She can't live with Cynthia, her mother's best friend: Cynthia has a small baby and a cranky husband. Why won't she let her friends comfort her? Should she contact the family she has never known? With pitch-perfect intensity, Mazer captures the fractured sense of loss, of self, of time that comes with a death in the family. Sarabeth's tentative relationship with a boy is sweetly drawn, and their ethnic differences echo her parents' religious differences. When she seeks out her parents' families, the losses pile up, but so do the people who care. And when Sarabeth finds a home in a most unlikely place, readers will be nodding and smiling through their tears.
GraceAnne DeCandidoCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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kindle_edition edition.
From School Library Journal
Gr 5-9-The day after Jane Silver wakes her daughter at 2 a.m. to witness a shower and "drink rain for luck," the 30-year-old woman has a sudden fatal heart attack. With no close relatives to rely on, 13-year-old Sarabeth has to adjust to life without her mom and the only home she's ever known. The theme of death and renewal is not a new one, but Mazer's characters deal with the process in a realistic, heartrending manner. Readers will readily identify with the girl's struggle to adapt as she temporarily moves in with her mother's friend Cynthia and her family. Cynthia's husband continually refers to Sarabeth as "our boarder," making it obvious that she is not part of their family. Inevitably, Sarabeth reluctantly searches out the relatives whom she has never met, unsure of her welcome. These are the same people who had disowned her young parents when Jane became pregnant at age 16. Set in present-day Anytown, U.S.A., the novel quickly draws readers into Sarabeth's world. It is through her eyes that they are introduced to her mother, her friends, her mother's ex-boyfriend, Cynthia, as well as her distant (but surprisingly likable) relatives. Mazer combines gentle humor with serious relationship issues without being preachy or moralistic. Her novel is reminiscent of Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming (Atheneum, 1981), though it is more succinct. Memorable characters, solid writing, and short chapters make Girlhearts a good purchase for most libraries.-Susie Paige, Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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