Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Meaning of Maggie / Megan Jean Sovern / 220 pages

Maggie Mayfield "always thought that all the answers to life's questions were in books.  [She'd] thought knowing where the sidewalk ends, and where the red fern grew, and where the wild things were could help [her] figure out LIFE."  After the attention-arresting, intriguing prologue, this book opens on Maggie's eleventh birthday.  Unfortunately, it doesn't go at all as planned.  Her father can no longer work outside the home because of his illness and her mother has had to take a job to pay the bills.  Her two older sisters seem to know what's going on and why, but Maggie knows she isn't being told everything.  This is a heart-warming, poignant story of a family in crisis and an indomitable, literature-loving fifth grader who is determined to "pull up her bootstraps" (the family motto) and make the best of a bad situation.  The family dynamics portrayed in this book, the careful, caring nature of the protagonists and footnotes make this one too good to miss.

No comments:

Post a Comment