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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607001292682 | Juvenile Fiction | STANLEY | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
Without warning, Houston teenager Ginny Dorris is packed off to England to join her father in a university experiment--a re-creation of an Iron Age community--while her mother recovers from a serious illness. Ginny copes with unimaginably primitive living conditions and longs to go home, but gradually she is drawn into the community's life and discovers resources that neither she nor her father knew she had. This fast-paced yet thoughtfulcoming-of-age story is based on a real-life Iron Age experiment.
2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) and Teacher's Choices for 2000 (IRA)
Author Notes
Diane Stanley was born in 1943 and was raised in Abilene, Texas. She later attended both Trinity University and Johns Hopkins University.
Her portfolio of children's book illustrations was creative enough for her to begin publication in 1978. She became an art director for G.P. Putnam & Sons and later began retelling and illustrating classic children's books.
Stanley has revamped the fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter and has also researched the children's biographies Cleopatra and Leonardo Da Vinci. She also illustrated her mother's book, The Last Princess.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Best known for her picture-book biographies, Stanley shoehorns more story ideas into her first novel than it comfortably holds. When her divorced mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, 13-year-old Ginny suddenly finds herself en route to England, where her uncommunicative, seldom-seen father is helping to run a reconstructed Iron Age settlement. Though she adapts readily to the homespun clothing, hard labor, and near total lack of modern amenities, her mother's rare and uninformative letters leave her in anguished suspense. Finally, she sneaks off to London, makes her own way back to Houston, and, after her father catches up, gets an ugly eyeful of her once-robust mother in the midst of heavy chemo. Then, it's off to England for several more months, until her mother is well enough to take her back. Competent, sensible, and wiser than either of her parents, Ginny makes an admirable protagonist, capable both of raising the primitive community's culinary standards and of convincing her mother and father that she doesn't need to be sheltered from the family ordeal. The unusual setting, and several sharp emotional climaxes, will engage readers, but all the comings and goings leave too little room to flesh out the supporting cast, and the author only fitfully succeeds in making the dangers and discomforts of Iron Age life palpable.-John Peters, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her first novel, consummate picture-book biographer Stanley (Joan of Arc) proves she is virtually as adept at creating fictional characters as she is at chronicling the lives of real people. Her premise here sounds complicated and even contrived; to her credit, it unfolds with ease. When Ginny's mother is diagnosed with breast cancer and faced with treatment, the 13-year-old is hastily shipped out from her home in Houston to England to join her professor fatherÄlong divorced, he has had little contact with Ginny. Her father is helping head up an experimental archeology project: he and various colleagues and volunteers have re-created an Iron Age village. Ginny is handed homespun clothes, advised to brush her teeth with a hazel twig and thrown into community life. Intelligent and compassionate, Ginny finds ways to cope with the deprivations, both material and emotional. Stanley makes the Iron Age-related challenges (such as finding the right clay to make cooking pots) as compelling as Ginny's emotions, and the protagonist always seems lifelike. The only missteps come when Ginny runs away from the projectÄit's hard to suspend disbelief when she, shoeless, penniless and clad in her bizarre clothing, finds her way safely to her dad's vacated London apartment. This sequence aside, the novel gives readers a chance to savor exotic experiences along with the challenges of coming of age. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved