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Home » Children's Books » #5000
Asked by darmstrong18 on Tue 19, May 2009 04:23pm :
The little girl stops talking when her older sister moves away and will
only write notes. She often leaves a note on the fridge, and then leaves
her house to play. She climbs the trees in an older woman's yard and they
soon come to a friendly understanding. Her sister returns and brings a boy
named Sam to live with them. Sam follows the girl and finds out where she
is going everyday. One day the girl figures out the woman has her disabled
adult daughter locked up in her house. The woman then says she can never
leave, but Sam watches her trap the girl inside. At the end of the book,
the girl is older and writing the book, and she is now dating Sam.
Answer:
Answer by admin on Tue 19, May 2009 05:24pm:
Hello.
The book is "The Other Side of Silence" (1995) by Margaret Mahy.
"The Other Side of Silence" is available from Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140385940?ie=UTF8&tag=whatsthatbook-20&linkCode=as2
(If you find Whatsthatbook.com useful, please help support the site by
making purchases at Amazon.com after clicking on one of our links )
Various descriptions of the book::
"Hero, the narrator, reflects on her 12th year when a series of unusual
events changed her life. At home, the abrupt return of her older sister,
Ginevra, creates both joy and stress in the Rapper family. Meanwhile,
Hero's leafy hideaway in the parklike grounds of a neighboring house
becomes the setting for a parttime job as well as the scene of violence and
despair. Working as a gardener for the eccentric Miss Credence, Hero is at
first unaware of the misery and madness that surround her. Skillful
foreshadowing, however, prepares readers for the book's shocking
revelations. Parallels between Ginevra and Miss Credence, neither of whom
were able to live up to their parents' unrealistic expectations; and
between Hero, mute by choice, and Jorinda, Miss Credence's unacknowledged
daughter who is locked in silence by severe neglect and possible brain
damage, provide plenty of food for thought as the story builds to a
crescendo. Despite the serious subject matter, the book is neither grim nor
hopeless."
"Twelve-year-old Hero has chosen to talk to no one except (on occasion) her
older brother, and yet, she notes, "even in the heart of my silence, I was
still a word child." And, indeed, the reflective Hero?who returns again and
again to stories she has read?uses words to wondrous effect as she slips in
and out of both her "real life" ("the life I lived with my family") and her
"true life" ("the early-morning life, which I lived before anyone else was
up and about"). Articulate and filled with intriguing imagery, her
first-person narrative proves that, though she may remain silent, Hero
absorbs and creatively decodes all that she hears and observes. Mahy's (The
Haunting; Underrunners) inventive plot involves two women who are hiding
something: Hero's older sister, who returns after many years with an
adolescent boy in tow; and an eccentric neighbor who hires Hero to work in
her garden. In different ways, their secrets will change Hero's life?as
will the voice inside of her, bidding her to "do something magical. I must
push the story on, and then I really could close the book and leave it
behind me.""
Summary: As a member of a gifted, idiosyncratic, and argumentative
family, twelve-year-old Hero chooses mutism until she reconciles the true
with the real in her life.
Notes: "A Vanessa Hamilton book"--T.P. verso
----
Subjects:
Selective mutism --Fiction.
Self-realization --Fiction.
Family problems --Fiction.
juvenile fiction
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