Showing posts with label sisters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sisters. Show all posts
Jan 19, 2019
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 15, 2018
Jun 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2015
The silver star - Jeannette Walls
Summary: Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.
Kirkus Reviews
Memoirist Walls, who has written about her own nomadic upbringing (The Glass Castle, 2006) and her remarkable grandmother (the novelized biography Half Broke Horses, 2009), turns to out-and-out fiction in this story about two young sisters who leave behind their life on the road for the small Virginia town their mother escaped years before. By 1970, 12-year-old Bean and 15-year-old Liz are used to moving from town to town with their would-be actress/singer mother, Charlotte. When Charlotte takes off to find herself in San Diego, the Holladay sisters know how to fend for themselves, living on potpies and getting themselves to school for several weeks. But then the authorities start sniffing around. Scared they'll be carted off to foster care, Liz decides they should head cross-country to Byler, Va., the hometown Charlotte left for good when Bean was still a baby. Clearly, Walls borrows from her own experience in describing the girls' peripatetic life, but she doesn't waste undue time on the road trip before getting the girls to Byler, where the real drama begins. The Holladays used to own the town's cotton mill, but all that's left is the decaying mansion where Charlotte's widowed brother still lives. Less cutesy eccentric than he first seems, Tinsley gives the girls the security they have missed. Tinsley also reflects Byler itself, a conservative Southern town struggling to adjust to shifting realities of racial integration and the Vietnam War. Bean joins the newly integrated school's pep squad and thrives by assimilating; creative, sensitive Liz chafes under pressure to conform. Then, Charlotte shows up wanting to take the girls to New York City. Walls throws in an unnecessary melodrama concerning an evil bully of a man who threatens Liz with violence and worse, but the novel's strength lies in capturing the complexity of Bean's and Liz's shifting loyalties. Walls turns what could have been another sentimental girl-on-the-run-finds-home cliché into a fresh consideration of both adolescence and the South on the cusp of major social change. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
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Sep 1, 2014
The Cahill Witch Chronicles - Jessica Spotswood
The Cahill Witch Chronicles - Spotswood, JessicaSummary: In an alternate New England of 1900, where the Brotherhood dominates and controls society, sixteen-year-old Cate Cahill has struggled since her mother's death to keep secret that she and her younger sisters are witches, but when a governess arrives from the Sisterhood, everything changes.
Booklist Reviews
The prophecy written in Mother's diary is clear: "A trio of sisters will come of age, all witches. One of the sisters, who will be gifted with mind-magic, will be the most powerful witch born in centuries." Her daughters—Cate, Maura, and Tess—compose the trio, and Cate is the one who possesses mind-magic. But Mother is dead, Father is oblivious, and the Brotherhood is intent on stamping out all witches in New England in an effort to squelch female independence and initiative. How can Cate protect herself and her sisters from the Brotherhood's terrifying scrutiny? Spotswood has melded historical fiction with the paranormal into an intriguing story of witchcraft, family responsibility, and unrequited love. A constant undercurrent of uneasiness permeates the novel; readers will find themselves tantalized by Cate's two suitors and their marriage proposals, terrified by the Brotherhood's hatred and disgust of girls and women, and frustrated at the necessity to wait for the second book in the Cahill Witch Chronicles to learn what becomes of the sisters.
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Jul 1, 2014
The Penderwicks - Jeanne Birdsall
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy - Birdsall, JeanneSummary: While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.
Horn Book Guide Reviews
Along with their loving but preoccupied botanist father and a clumsy dog, the motherless Penderwick sisters spend their summer holiday in the Massachusetts Berkshires in a rose-covered cottage on the grounds of a mansion. Suffused with affectionate humor, this charming, old-fashioned story feels familiar in the way the best books seem like old friends.
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Mar 1, 2014
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie - Alan C. Bradley
Series: Flavia de Luce Mysteries
Summary: Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, must exonerate her father of murder. Armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together and examine new suspects, she begins a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Canadian Alan Bradley's first full-length crime novel is delightful. Like fellow Canadian Louise Penny, his book is the recipient of the Debut Dagger Award from Canada's Crime Writers' Association. Sweetness introduces a charming and engaging sleuth who is only 11 years old. Flavia is one of three precocious and extremely literate daughters being raised by English widower Colonel de Luce in 1950. Flavia's passion is chemistry (with a special interest in poisons). She is able to pursue her passion in the fully equipped Victorian laboratory in Buckshaw, the English mansion where the de Luce family lives. The story begins with a dead snipe (with a rare stamp embedded on its beak) found on the back doorstep. This is followed by a dead human body in the garden and, later, by a poisonous custard pie. Revelations about the mysterious past of Colonel de Luce complicate matters. Others supporting players include the housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet, and the gardener, Dogger, who suffers from shell shock. When Colonel de Luce is arrested for murder, it's up to Flavia to solve the mystery. The 11-year-old claims she is not afraid because "this was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life." Only those who dislike precocious young heroines with extraordinary vocabulary and audacious courage can fail to like this amazingly entertaining book. Expect more from the talented Bradley. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Feb 1, 2014
The death of bees - Lisa O'Donnell
Summary: "Marnie and her little sister, Nelly, are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren't telling. While life in Glasgow's Maryhill housing estate isn't grand, the girls do have each other. Besides, it's only a year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both. As the New Year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? Lennie takes them in--feeds them, clothes them, protects them--and something like a family forms. But soon enough, the sisters' friends, their teachers, and the authorities start asking tougher questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls' family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart."--www.Amazon.com
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Marnie and Nelly have just buried their parents in the garden behind the Glasgow housing development where they live. Their father, Gene, was a drug addict attracted to young girls. Their mother, Izzy, was a boozer who paid little attention to the care and safety of her daughters. Gene died of dubious causes, and Izzy killed herself in grief. The girls are better off without their parents, and they know it. The challenge is to stay out of the way of the authorities for a year until Marnie turns 16 and will be legally able to take guardianship of her sister. Their nosy neighbor, Lennie, a homosexual whose partner has recently died, leaving him bereft and at loose ends, provides their only stability. But Lennie is curious about the whereabouts of their parents. As awful as he knows them to be, they can't really have abandoned their daughters for an extended vacation in Turkey, can they? That's what the girls tell him and anyone else who asks, until their secrets start to unravel. O'Donnell's finely drawn characters display the full palette of human flaws and potential. Told in the alternating voices of Marnie, Nelly, and Lennie, this beautifully written page-turner will have readers fretting about what will become of the girls. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Dec 2, 2013
The weird sisters - Eleanor Brown
The weird sisters - Brown, Eleanor
Summary: Unwillingly brought together to care for their ailing mother, three sisters who were named after famous Shakespearean characters discover that everything they have been avoiding may prove more worthwhile than expected.
Booklist Reviews
Three sisters, a scholarly father who breaks into iambic pentameter, and an absentminded but loving mother who brought the girls up in rural Ohio may sound like an idyllic family; however, when Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia return home—ostensibly to help their parents through their mother's cancer treatment—readers begin to see a whole different family. A prologue introduces characters and hints of the dramas to come, while the omniscient narrator, seemingly the combined consciousness of the sisters, chronicles in the first-person plural events that occur during the heavy Ohio summer and end in the epilogue, which describes an (overly?) hopeful resolution. Brown writes with authority and affection both for her characters and the family hometown of Barnwell, a place that almost becomes another character in the story. A skillful use of flashback shows the characters developing and evolving as well as establishing the origins of family myth and specific personality traits. There are no false steps in this debut novel: the humor, lyricism, and realism characterizing this lovely book will appeal to fans of good modern fiction as well as stories of family and of the Midwest. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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Apr 1, 2012
A faraway island - Annika Thor
Summary: In 1939 Sweden, two Jewish sisters wait for their parents to join them in fleeing the Nazis in Austria, but while eight-year-old Nellie settles in quickly, twelve-year-old Stephie feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who is as cold and unforgiving as the island on which they live.
Booklist Reviews
"In 1939, Jewish sisters Stephie and Nellie Steiner are evacuated from their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna to an island off the coast of Sweden, where separate foster families take them in. Eight-year-old Nellie adjusts very quickly—learning Swedish, making friends, and enjoying her new foster siblings. Twelve-year-old Stephie has more difficulties—she is tormented by school bullies, must deal with a cold and critical foster mother, and worries about her parents' safety. Thor successfully captures the feel of small-town Sweden circa 1939-40, with its kindly citizens devoted to Christianity and good works who nevertheless harbor latent anti-Semitic views. The translation is mostly smooth, and the use of third-person present tense narration helps distance readers from Holocaust realities while subtly reminding them that child refugees still exist. The first of four volumes featuring the Steiner sisters, this should be popular with fans of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (1989) and make a good bridge to more visceral memoirs such as Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (1998)." Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Apr 1, 2011
Little women - Louisa May Alcott
Summary: Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young women in mid-nineteenth-century New England.
Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War. Through their dreams, plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother, Jo's struggle to become a writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May Alcott's childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.
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Feb 1, 2011
The cookbook collector - Allegra Goodman
Summary: "...a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can't find what we're looking for..."--Inside cover.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Emily is the classy and astute CEO of a San Francisco digital start-up about to go public in late 1999. Her lover, Jonathan, is launching his own tech company in Cambridge, and questions of trust and ambition are complicating marriage plans. Jessamine, Emily's younger sister, is studying philosophy at Berkeley, volunteering with gutsy eco-activists determined to protect California's redwoods, and working in a rare and used bookstore owned by control freak George, an early Microsoft millionaire. Goodman captures the fizz and folly of the dot.com boom and bust with wit and perspicuity, and brilliantly contrasts the cerebral seductiveness of the cyber realm with such sensuous obsessions as George's gourmet cooking and Jess' consuming fascination with the collection of invaluable old cookbooks George acquires under peculiar circumstances. The cookbooks harbor clues to a romantic mystery Jess stubbornly investigates, while encounters with two ebullient Hasidic rabbis induce increasingly disenchanted Emily to search for the truth about her and Jess' late mother. From mysticism to algorithms, IPOs, and endangered trees and souls, Goodman spins a glimmering tale, spiked with hilarious banter, of ardent individualists, imperiled love, and incandescent interpretations of the mutability and timelessness of the human condition. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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Dec 1, 2010
Pride & prejudice - Nancy Butler
Summary: A graphic novel adaptation of Jane Austen's beloved novel "Pride & Prejudice" in which Lizzy Bennet and her loveable, eccentric family navigate through tricky British social circles.
Staff Review:
If you enjoyed Austen's classic this will be a fun and light read.
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Sep 1, 2010
Her fearful symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
Summary: When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves everything to the 20-year-old American twin daughters of her own long-estranged twin, Edie. Valentina and Julia, as enmeshed as Elspeth and Edie once were, move into Elspeth's London flat and through a series of developing relationships a crisis develops that could pull the twins apart.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Niffenegger, a Chicago artist and writer with an elegantly romantic and otherworldly sensibility, earned international acclaim for The Time Traveler's Wife (2003). This season the film version of her best-selling debut will be quickly followed by this cunning and enrapturing ghost story. As evident in her exquisite, fairy tale–like illustrated novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters (2005) and The Adventuress (2006), Niffenegger has a discerning eye and a slyly gothic sensibility, elements that shape this tragicomic fantasy about two generations of twins. Valentina and Julia, inseparable, 20-year-old "mirror image" twins, are still living with their parents outside Chicago when they inherit a flat in London from Elspeth, their mother's long-estranged twin. Unaware of the painful secret that has kept Edwina and Elspeth apart, ethereal Julia and Valentina arrive in London to find they'll be living beside the historic Highgate Cemetery. The flat below theirs is occupied by Elspeth's broken-hearted, younger lover, Robert; the flat above is home to Martin, a crossword puzzle–maker plagued with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it seems as though Elspeth is still in residence as a meddlesome ghost. With a sumptuously mournful mise-en-scene (Robert is a cemetery guide, as is the author), Niffenegger tells a gorgeously rendered, utterly bewitching, and profoundly unnerving tale of the mysteries of selfhood and death and the way love can be both a radiant and malevolent force. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Aug 3, 2010
Sing them home - Stephanie Kallos
Sing them home - Kallos, Stephanie
Summary: Everyone in Emlyn Springs knows the story of Hope Jones, the physician's wife whose big dreams for their tiny town were lost along with her in the tornado of 1978. For Hope's three young children, the stability of life with their preoccupied father, and with Viney, their mother's spitfire best friend, is no match for Hope's absence. Larken, the eldest, is now an art history professor who seeks in food an answer to a less tangible hunger; Gaelan, the son, is a telegenic weatherman who devotes his life to predicting the unpredictable; and the youngest, Bonnie, is a self-proclaimed archivist who combs roadsides for clues to her mother's legacy, and permission to move on. When they're summoned home after their father's death, each sibling is forced to revisit the childhood tragedy that has defined their lives.
Booklist Reviews
Things are swept away by tornados in Emlyn Springs, Nebraska: pianos, houses, and a young girl and her mother. Although the young girl, Bonnie Jones, is eventually recovered, her mother, Aneira Hope Jones, never resurfaces. The painful circumstances surrounding their mother s death leave the Jones children, Larken, Gaelen, and Bonnie (henceforth christened Flying Girl), emotionally stunted and struggling to learn how to love. Years later, when another natural disaster draws them together, the three are confronted by the clouded past that has haunted them since childhood. In multiple ways, it is the community members of Emlyn Springs who teach these motherless children how to love again. Sing Them Home ushers us into small-town life, with all its distinctive cultural nuances, eccentric personalities, and homegrown secrets. With the same beauty and lyricism of her first novel, Broken for You (2004), Kallos stitches together a colorful patchwork of memories and images, creating a rich narrative fabric that develops and changes as it passes through each character s hands. Copyright Booklist Reviews 2008.
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The sisters from Hardscrabble Bay - Beverly Jensen
The sisters from Hardscrabble Bay - Jensen, Beverly
Summary: A sequence of tales chronicling the early 20th-century lives of New Brunswick sisters Idella and Avis Hillock includes "Gone," an account of their mother's heartbreaking childbirth crisis and the Pushcart Prize-nominated "Wake," in which they attend their wild father's funeral. - (Baker & Taylor)
Staff Review
I really enjoyed this tale of sisters Avis and Idella and the world as it progresses around them. Great characters and dialogue. A lovely book. The fact that the author died before seeing her only book get published makes it all the more bittersweet.
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