time spent reading: 1.5 hours
pages read: 129
I grabbed this book off the shelf because it was short, and I wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment first thing this morning. It turns out I really enjoyed this short children's story. Sara lives with her Aunt Willie along with her 19-year-old sister, Wanda, and her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie, after her mother passed away. Sara's father works in another town and visits occasionally on the weekends. One summer morning, Sara wakes up and finds her brother has disappeared. He got up in the middle of night wanting to see the swans at the lake Sara had taken him to the day before, but he couldn't remember the way and got himself lost in the woods.
I liked this story because it reminds me of my grandmother, and how she probably grew up. The characters are real people and funny to listen to. They all share the same names as my grandmother's family and friends: Midge, Frank, Wanda, etc. It reminds me of the "good ole' days" when there was only one television program to choose from, and people got excited about the little things. Everyone knew each other, and everyone was cordial.
Sara is an adolescent who is discontent with life. She thinks she's ugly and has clown feet made all the worse by her "Donald Duck" orange-dyed tennis shoes.
Up until this year, it seemed, her life had flowed along with rhythmic evenness. The first fourteen years of her life all seemed the same. She had loved her sister without envy, her aunt without finding her coarse, her brother without pity. Now all that was changed. She was filled with discontent, and anger about herself, her family, that made her think she would never be content again. p.35
Really, this is nothing more than what every 14 year old girl feels at one point or time.
"I feel like I want to start screaming and kicking and I want to jump up and tear down the curtains and rip up the sheets [...] I want to yank my clothes out of the clsoet and burn them and -"
"Well, why don't you try it if it would make you feel better?"
"Because it wouldn't." [...] "I just feel like nothing."
"Oh, everybody does at times, Sara."
"Not like me. I'm not anything. I'm not cute, and I'm not pretty, and I'm not a good dancer, and I'm not smart, and I'm not popular. I'm not anything." p. 39
The story only covers a 24 hour period, from one evening to the next. That's not enough time for a character to actually grow and change a whole lot. Sara is still Sara, but she finds that she had misjudged a boy from her school and maybe her father, too.
The humor in the characters' conversations is also what makes the story so enjoyable. As Sara and her friend Mary are tryin to figure out where Charlie went, Mary suggests they go back to the house as he may be there. Sara knows that won't be the case, and she repeats this again and again.
"I know he won't be."
"Well, don't get discouraged until we see." [...] "You know who you sound like? Remember when Mary Louise was up for class president and she kept saying, 'I know won't get it.' For three days that was all she said."
"And she didn't get it."
"Well, I just meant you sounded like her, your voice or something," Mary explained quickly. p. 61
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