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The Tiger Rising
by Kate DiCamillo
Reviewed by a.fortis (Sarah Stevenson), ReadingYA: Readers' Rants
After Rob Horton's mother died, Rob and his father found themselves living a completely different life. The Kentucky Star
motel in the small Florida town of Lister is their home now. His father, who works for the motel owner, does his best to
take care of him, but the kids at school tease and bully Rob, and the principal is concerned that the rash on Rob's legs is
contagious, even though it isn't.
But Rob has found a way to cope. He just stuffs all his feelings and memories into a little suitcase inside him, and
doesn't let any of it escape. That is, until a new girl moves to town. Sistine Bailey isn't like anyone else at his school.
She comes from the big city—Philadelphia—and she wears frilly party dresses to school, even though they're in
sixth grade.
Kids make fun of her too, but there's one crucial difference: Sistine fights back. And when Rob discovers that the motel's
owner is keeping a tiger in a cage in the woods behind the motel, Sistine wants to fight for the tiger, too. Her
fierceness—so much like the tiger's—wakes something inside Rob, and somehow allows his carefully suppressed
emotions to slip out. Around Sistine, he's not afraid to talk.
The Tiger Rising, a National Book Award finalist by Kate DiCamillo, is a wonderful example of the author's
economy of style, in which each sentence, each moment of the story, provides a jewel-like image, crystal clear. The
simplicity of the prose and the brevity of the novel belie its depth and emotional resonance. Everyday acts and simple
images are full of symbolic meaning: the continually rising and falling neon star on the Kentucky Star sign; the animals
and people Rob whittles out of wood; the tiger itself, trapped in its cage.
Yet nothing is heavy-handed, and each character is very real and complex. Ultimately, Rob learns that, just as a tiger
doesn't belong in a little cage, he can't keep his feelings under lock and key forever. And, in classic DiCamillo style,
Rob isn't the only character who learns something; even in small ways, all of the main characters grow, and learn that
sometimes it's opening up to others that gives us what we need most.
A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Reviews by Kelly Herold, Big A little a
This book is a finalist for the Middle Grade Fiction category of the
2006 Cybil Awards.
A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama is one awesome tale. It has orphans, spiritualism, a trio of elderly sisters,
and a mysterious adoption. What else could you want?
It's 1909 and the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans is preparing for an adoption visit. The youngest, blondest girls are
being primped for the visitors. Meanwhile, eleven-year-old Maud is locked in the outhouse for an act of daily defiance. When
the adopting party overhears Maud singing in the outhouse, she frees Maud and asks to adopt her instead. The Barbary Asylum
for girls is astounded ("'Maud Flynn is not suitable,' Miss Kitteridge said. Her nostrils twitched as if she were
smelling something nasty.") Before she knows it, Maud is headed home with Hyacinth Hawthorne and her sister Judith.
The sisters buy Maud the best in clothes, books, and other finery. Then they take her home to a large Victorian mansion with a
dark, enclosed garden. And, they tell her to stay out of the way. When a visitor arrives at the home, she's to escape up
to her third-floor room by the back stairs. And, that's not the only thing. Maud's favorite sister—Hyacinth—leaves
for weeks at a time and Maud is left with with Judith and the third sister, Victoria. Oh, and with the deaf maid, Muffet.
Maud tries to keep herself busy as best as possible, reading, doing her lessons, and teaching Muffet how to read. She wonders
what goes on in the house when there are visitors, but, grateful for being saved from the orphanage, mostly stays out of the
way. But then she's let in on the secret of what goes on in the house. Seances. The visitors come to have Hyacinth
contact dead family members. And, soon, Maud is in on the action—singing, ringing bells, knocking on cue. Hyacinth
is clear with Maud that she is defrauding her clients, that the seances are pure trickery. She also tells Maud that
they are leaving for Cape Calypso for their biggest job yet.
Maud leaves with the sisters on the train and prepares to play Caroline Lambert, a perfect child with blond curls who drowned
in the sea. Her mother has never recovered from Caroline's death and desperately wants to talk to her child. Maud has her
doubts as to whether or not she can play the perfect Caroline, but her love for Hyacinth is so true, she gives it her all.
But she can't obey the stay-in-the-house rule. Cape Calypso is just too attractive with its beaches and, especially, its
carousel. Maud's doubts and nightly escapades are not the only things undermining the upcoming seance's success. The
household is falling apart—Victoria and Judith aren't sold on Hyacinth's plan and Victoria even
leaves before the final seance.
I won't tell you what happens in the end, but I will tell you it's a true melodrama. A Drowned Maiden's Hair is
highly recommended, gothic fun for children ages eight and up.
The Tiger Rising, by Kate DiCamillo. Candlewick, 2002. ISBN: 0-7636-1898-5.
A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama, by Laura Amy Schlitz. Candlewick, 2006. ISBN: 0-7636-2930-8.
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