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Summary
Summary
Teenage Jeannie unfolds the triumphs and tragedies of her close-knit family as they face violent changes on their isolated Derbyshire farm.
Summary
Teenage Jeannie unfolds the triumphs and tragedies of her close-knit family as they face violent changes on their isolated Derbyshire farm.
Reviews (8)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up --A vivid story of relationships, told in a graceful, fluid style. ``We were a house of secrets'' says Jeannie, the narrator. The short vignettes, each about one family member, are intrinsically linked, yet are as separate as the individuals are from one another. Their farm in Britain is the nucleus: the family's lifeblood for generations, it takes on its own character and influences all their lives. Foreshadowings and premonitions abound, as private people lead secret lives and harbor secret dreams. Lack of communication almost shatters their lives, stemming from a proud, stubborn father with a ferocious temper who is afraid to care and afraid to let go; from children whose own dreams do not conform to his expectations and who therefore must hurt him. In the end, all is not-so-neatly resolved through love and family bonding, but readers still come away with an all's-right-with-the-world feeling. Doherty is a born storyteller with a flow of language that begs to be read aloud. This is a book filled with rifts and renewals, tempers and tensions, all healed by the bonds of love. Don't let it slip by older YAs. --Trev Jones, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Separated into ten chapters, many of which are complete stories in themselves, the bittersweet novel attempts to sort out the tangle of rifts and loyalties that binds the Tanner family together on a small farm in England's Derbyshire hills. The richness of the imagery and thematic content and the finely textured ambiguities of the characterizations will leave readers with sweet, lingering memories. From HORN BOOK 1990, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The author of Granny Was a Buffer Girl (1988, Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book) again portrays a family by telling an exquisitely crafted story about each member, this time making the links between them more apparent from the beginning. Jeannie, a teen-ager who lives on a sheep farm in the Peak District near Sheffield, tells of Gran's final, courageously independent decision after a life she considered wasted because she was forced to leave Oxford to care for her family; of her sister's runaway marriage to the son of their father's archenemy, a neighboring farmer; of her artist brother's bitter struggle with Dad, whose heart is set on having him take over the farm; of Mum's heroic struggle to keep the farm--and her marriage--after Dad has a disabling accident. At the novel's heart are the needs of the four talented children for self-realization, each endangered by the family habit of stifling communication--a crippling result of Dad's perpetual, lashing, irrational anger. And yet, unlike Gran, this generation is not thwarted. Ironically, Dad's incapacity, by forcing everyone into new roles, frees each to grow in unexpected ways--even Dad. The interaction of these subtly drawn, fully realized characters is altogether believable, and so involving that the book is almost impossible to put down. Another splendid novel from an accomplished author. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Betrayal is a common theme in these stories about a farm family in the north of England. And with the betrayal, long-denied secrets flash from the dark. Written originally for BBC Radio, like those in Doherty's previous collection, Granny Was a Buffer Girl [BKL Mr 1 88], each story stands alone and gains from its connections with the others, but this time there's no confusing attempt to make the collection a novel. Teenage Jeannie, observer and intense participant, qui~etly tells of the conflict in her home where tyranny drives anger into hiding. Brooding over the farm is her father, bullying, narrow; even when he's in pain "the blackness in him . . . divided him from the rest of us and us from each other." His rigid authority forces one daughter to marry in secret and transforms his son's search for identity into tearing grief. The patterns repeat themselves in character and story: the son is gentle, but he also has his father's spitting cruelty. Gran, who gave up Oxford to nurse her mother and raise a family, feels she wasted her life; Jeannie nearly does the same for love. Some of the stories, especially the last ones, try for a tidy resolution or depend on a trick of plot, but the best of them are both melancholy and affirmative, rooted in the enduring change of seasons on the moors. Doherty is candid about the strong bonds of family and place, and also about the struggle to be free of them. Gr. 6-12. --Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up --A vivid story of relationships, told in a graceful, fluid style. ``We were a house of secrets'' says Jeannie, the narrator. The short vignettes, each about one family member, are intrinsically linked, yet are as separate as the individuals are from one another. Their farm in Britain is the nucleus: the family's lifeblood for generations, it takes on its own character and influences all their lives. Foreshadowings and premonitions abound, as private people lead secret lives and harbor secret dreams. Lack of communication almost shatters their lives, stemming from a proud, stubborn father with a ferocious temper who is afraid to care and afraid to let go; from children whose own dreams do not conform to his expectations and who therefore must hurt him. In the end, all is not-so-neatly resolved through love and family bonding, but readers still come away with an all's-right-with-the-world feeling. Doherty is a born storyteller with a flow of language that begs to be read aloud. This is a book filled with rifts and renewals, tempers and tensions, all healed by the bonds of love. Don't let it slip by older YAs. --Trev Jones, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Separated into ten chapters, many of which are complete stories in themselves, the bittersweet novel attempts to sort out the tangle of rifts and loyalties that binds the Tanner family together on a small farm in England's Derbyshire hills. The richness of the imagery and thematic content and the finely textured ambiguities of the characterizations will leave readers with sweet, lingering memories. From HORN BOOK 1990, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The author of Granny Was a Buffer Girl (1988, Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book) again portrays a family by telling an exquisitely crafted story about each member, this time making the links between them more apparent from the beginning. Jeannie, a teen-ager who lives on a sheep farm in the Peak District near Sheffield, tells of Gran's final, courageously independent decision after a life she considered wasted because she was forced to leave Oxford to care for her family; of her sister's runaway marriage to the son of their father's archenemy, a neighboring farmer; of her artist brother's bitter struggle with Dad, whose heart is set on having him take over the farm; of Mum's heroic struggle to keep the farm--and her marriage--after Dad has a disabling accident. At the novel's heart are the needs of the four talented children for self-realization, each endangered by the family habit of stifling communication--a crippling result of Dad's perpetual, lashing, irrational anger. And yet, unlike Gran, this generation is not thwarted. Ironically, Dad's incapacity, by forcing everyone into new roles, frees each to grow in unexpected ways--even Dad. The interaction of these subtly drawn, fully realized characters is altogether believable, and so involving that the book is almost impossible to put down. Another splendid novel from an accomplished author. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Betrayal is a common theme in these stories about a farm family in the north of England. And with the betrayal, long-denied secrets flash from the dark. Written originally for BBC Radio, like those in Doherty's previous collection, Granny Was a Buffer Girl [BKL Mr 1 88], each story stands alone and gains from its connections with the others, but this time there's no confusing attempt to make the collection a novel. Teenage Jeannie, observer and intense participant, qui~etly tells of the conflict in her home where tyranny drives anger into hiding. Brooding over the farm is her father, bullying, narrow; even when he's in pain "the blackness in him . . . divided him from the rest of us and us from each other." His rigid authority forces one daughter to marry in secret and transforms his son's search for identity into tearing grief. The patterns repeat themselves in character and story: the son is gentle, but he also has his father's spitting cruelty. Gran, who gave up Oxford to nurse her mother and raise a family, feels she wasted her life; Jeannie nearly does the same for love. Some of the stories, especially the last ones, try for a tidy resolution or depend on a trick of plot, but the best of them are both melancholy and affirmative, rooted in the enduring change of seasons on the moors. Doherty is candid about the strong bonds of family and place, and also about the struggle to be free of them. Gr. 6-12. --Hazel Rochman
