Couloumbis - Getting Near to Baby
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- Book:Getting Near to Baby
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- Publisher:Penguin Group US;Puffin Books
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- Year:2014
- City:New York
- Rating:3 / 5
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Getting Near to Baby: summary, description and annotation
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A Southern charmer for fans of Newbery Honor book Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage Audrey Couloumbiss masterful debut novel brings to mind Karen Hesse, Katherine Paterson, and Betsy Byarss The Summer of the Swansit is a story you will never forget. Willa Jo and Little Sister are up on the roof at Aunt Pattys house. Willa Jo went up to watch the sunrise, and Little Sister followed, like she always does. But by mid-morning, they are still up on that roof, and soon its clear it wasnt just the sunrise that brought them there. The trouble is, coming down would mean theyd have to explain, and they just cant find the words. This is a funny, sometimes heartbreaking, story about sisters, about grief, and about healing. Two girls must come to terms with the death of their baby sister, their mothers unshakable depression, and the ridiculously controlling aunt who takes them in and means well but just doesnt understand children. Willa Jo has to try and make things right in their new home, but she and Aunt Patty keep butting heads. Until the morning the two girls climb up to the roof of her house. Aunt Patty tries everything she can think of to get them down, but in the end, the solution is miraculously simple. A Newbery Honor Book An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.
Couloumbis: author's other books
Who wrote Getting Near to Baby? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Couloumbis
Elison Skotch
Saundra Mitchell
Willa Cather
Lesley Simpson
Raina Telgemeier
Willa Cather
Stan Berenstain
Audrey Couloumbis
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Table of Contents
Things dont feel right here.
I want to open my eyes in the morning to see my very own wallpaper with the tiny blue flowers and pink rosebuds. Aunt Patty does not believe in putting up wallpaper, not even in the bathroom. She says mold grows behind it.
I want Mom to read to us for an hour before bedtime, all of us in a clump like alligators in the sun so we can all look at the pictures together. Aunt Patty tucks us into bed before it is even full dark. We want our mom. Were worried about her having to sleep all alone. We worry that she doesnt eat right, now that she doesnt have us to feed. We miss her.
I hear Aunt Pattys bossy voice, rousing Uncle Hob out of his bed. Shes telling him he has to come outside to order us down. Or to plead with us, whichever he thinks will work. That sad feeling I have hardens into a mad feeling and I dont think Ill ever get down off this roof. Ill stay here till kingdom comes.
Couloumbis first novel wears its heart on one sleeve and its humor on the other. Together, they make a splendid fit.
Booklist, boxed review
Willa Jo tells the tale in a nonlinear, back-and-forth fashion that not only prepares readers emotionally for her heartrending account of Babys death, but also artfully illuminates each characters depths and foibles.... The author creates a cast founded on likable, real-seeming people who grow and change in response to tragedy.
Kirkus Reviews, pointer review
OTHER PUFFIN BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY
Come Sing, Jimmy Jo Katherine Paterson
Flip-Flop Girl Katherine Paterson
The Secret Life of Amanda K. Woods Ann Cameron
The Summer of the Swans Betsy Byars
Wish on a Unicorn Karen Hesse
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are some things a writer can be lucky enough to have, like friends who really want it to happen for her. And if shes more than lucky, if shes truly fortunate, she has a husband who never asks, Why are you doing this? He just pulls on his boots and trucks out into the snowy night for yet another ream of paper and a printer cartridge.
There are some things a writer can work toward, learning to write to the best of your ability, and regarding criticism as a blessing far more valuable than any compliment, and letting the worlds finest childrens book agent (Jennifer Flannery) know you are out there. But there are some things only the mysterious workings of the universe can take credit for.
Like the signs posted along the way. Like the teachers who arrive so unexpectedly. Like the way my editor (Kathy Dawson) turned out to be someone who could inhale a manuscript and, on the exhale, elicit not only the parts of the story I didnt know I knew, but the very parts that helped to make this the very finest work I have ever done, and that just coincidentally were the very details that make the story whole and as near perfect as it could become.
I am forever grateful to them all.
Before Jennifer and Kathy, there were knowledgeable readers: Abby Williams Gese. Miriam, Stacy, Suzanne, Uma. Carol, Susan, Phyllis, and Stephen. Alix, Lee, Tina, Barbara, Miss Maris, Arline, and my husband, Akila. And there were my children, Nikki and Zac, strong supporters whove lived their whole lives with the Aunt Patty and the Willa Jo in me, which is no doubt how I came to know these characters so well. Thank you all for your patience and kindness.
This book is dedicated to Mama Nickys memory.
One of my most sustaining memories of her
is that of my small children running before me.
And the way she dropped whatever she was working on,
the way she sat forward to meet them, the nearly
straight line of her as her arms opened to welcome them.
is that of my small children running before me.
And the way she dropped whatever she was working on,
the way she sat forward to meet them, the nearly
straight line of her as her arms opened to welcome them.
Early Morning
Aunt Patty is fed up with me.
She told me so last night. When I got into bed, there was a sick feeling in my stomach that stayed with me through my sleep. I came out here to breathe deep of the fresh air but that sick feeling has not yet gone away.
And then Mrs. Garber ran by. Who would think somebody fifty years old would be up and running down the road before daybreak? She ran by and then she ran back and stared at me from the road, her knees all the time pumping up and down. I didnt say a word to her.
She came up to the house and rang the doorbell. I heard the doorbell and I heard her sneakers on the flag-stone patio, pum, pum, pum. My stomach started to hurt.
No answer.
After a couple of minutes she rings the doorbell again. A light comes on. I see a pale yellow square in the grass, like a shadow in reverse. Pum, pum, pum. The front door opens. Aunt Pattys voice breaks the silence of early morning.
Mrs. Garber, is there something wrong?
There are whispers. A squawk from Aunt Patty, and more whispers. I wrap my arms more tightly around my knees. Pretty soon Mrs. Garber is on her way down the road again. She does not look back once.
The front door closes.
My heart feels like there is a string tied around it, with something heavy hanging from the string. I dont like it. But the sky has broken pink and is stretching pale lavender fingers toward heaven. So I make up my mind to watch those sky fingers fade to nothing, to be burned away by the sunrise.
And here it comes.
A thin rim of orange-red, so deep and strong my heart almost breaks with the fierceness of that color. Moment by moment, there is more of it to see. So hot and bright, I cannot look but at the edges. Even when I look away, look clear away to the waning edge of darkness, I can see that color in my minds eye, feel it beating in my very blood. I breathe color.
All at once the neighborhood is waking up. A phone rings not too far away. It may even be Aunt Pattys phone. Two pickup trucks come out from the piney woods, turn off in the direction that Mrs. Garber ran. A dog barks. Next door, Mrs. Biddle puts her cat out. Squeaky spring of her back door, slam. I hear an alarm clock go off. An old-timey miners clock that goes Braaaaaang.
Below, the front door opens again. Willa Jo Dean, what do you think youre doing up there?
I think, Watching the sun rise.
I came up on the roof to watch the sun rise and I just stayed, I could say.
I know Little Sister is up there with you, Aunt Patty says, as if I was keeping it a secret. Little Sister is here because she follows me everywhere. Everyone knows that.
Willa Jo, dont you act like you can just ignore me, now.
No one can ignore Aunt Patty, thats part of the trouble. She has that kind of voice. There isnt any hope of ignoring her.
I take off my leather sandals and place them so the heels are caught on a ridge and they wont slide down. Little Sister is already barefoot. I inch across the roof that feels like it has been sprinkled with coarse salt, liking the way the scratchy surface clutches at the fabric of my shorts, clings to my skin. I dont like getting this close to the edge, all the time knowing what Ill see. And then I do.
I look down on my aunt Patty, who is looking up, her hair in pin curls. Shes short and wide, and wearing a brown terry bathrobe that is the sorriest thing. From two and a half stories up, she looks like a face on a stump.
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