Sheila O'Connor (1)

A heart-breakingly beautiful set of short stories (some of them very short) that tell the story of Callie, her two little sisters, and her mother in the period after the mother and father split up. The timeframe is the 1960s-1970s; the location, a small town in the Midwest. From time to time I was struck by recognition of places or events (RFK's assassination, Lulu's blue lipstick in "To Sir With Love," for two examples).

This is, physically, a very small book, but every word counts, not a show more word wasted. That's my favorite kind of story. show less

When Raine O'Rourke finds out her mother has signed her up for a summer at a ramshackle old mansion called Sparrow Road, she's desperate to escape. Raine can hardly believe that she's being forced to give up a summer with her beloved Grandpa Mac at his store in Milwaukee to spend long days in a mysterious country mansion while her mom cooks and cleans for a bunch of live-in artists. Even worse, the artists demand silence which means, no TV, no radio, no talking. What good could come of a show more summer spent like that? More good than Raine could ever have expected, as it turns out.

You can see, taste, and feel O'Connor's idyllic country summer at Sparrow Road. The long, silent days filled with mysteries and dreams stretch out like magic luring readers into Raine's journey of imagination and self-discovery. The surreal, almost dreamlike quality of a summer at Sparrow Road balances a story filled with unpleasant truths about lives lived at a former orphanage and Raine's own troubled past.

Let's just get to the point, though. I loved Sparrow Road. It's not surprising that you can often expect that the younger an audience a book is aimed at the more things like character development get neglected in favor of action. Not so with Sparrow Road. These characters leap off the page. Raine is a vivid protagonist coming to terms with family secrets. Her mother is a steady presence who wants to do the right thing but is still working out just what that is. The artists aren't the dark and broody sort, but the sort that burst off the page with their uniqueness and the joy they find in the act of creating. Josie, Diego, and even slightly loopy Lillian all do their part showing Raine how to get in touch with the art that's inside of her.

Even though O'Connor doesn't scrimp on her characters, there is still plenty of action to keep the pages turning as mysteries unfold and still other characters reveal themselves to be more than they seem. O'Connor skillfully weaves clues into her story keeping readers hungry for more. Sparrow Road is, above all, a satisfying read, filled with love and committed to revealing the ghosts of the past. It is the kind of book I would have loved as a kid and a book that I love now, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to both the young and the young at heart. show less

I wish I could give this book a "blizzard of stars".

If there is one book you read this summer. This is it. This is the book that made me fall in love with reading again. 12-year-old Raine has an unexpected summer that at first she resists and as she transforms, and the people she meets transforms - it changes her life forever.

I read this coming-of-age book every free chance I got over two days. It is so beautifully written, like riding a slow, golden wave that builds and builds and covers show more all in its beauty to rest finally at a peaceful shore. O'Connor creates such an amazing scene and set of so many characters with such sparse, poetic prose. It's written in the first person, which I usually don't enjoy, but this is written so elegantly it FEELS like third person as we see and feel how all the characters are thru Raine's eyes and heart.

It's a book about searching for something you don't know. It's about love, hope, redemption, getting left behind - and doing the leaving yourself when ready. I cried three times reading this book. I flipped back to pages to re-read the scenes that painted my heart with wonder and feeling.

Don't miss out on this book. I can't wait to read more of O'Connor's books. show less

Things I liked:

1. The suspense of why Raine and her mother go to Sparrow Road for the summer. As I've said before, with everyday life fiction like this, it helps a lot to have some kind of mystery driving the plot and this really worked. Of course, the mystery is solved halfway through, but then you can kind of coast on the strength of the characters and relationships.

2. Raine's development as a writer. The way she asks herself questions like "What was and what will be?' and creates a show more character, Lyman, that's sort of like an imaginary friend. This book could really inspire kids to write and create art.

3. The writing was very solid. Pretty without being flowery. Raine had a distinct voice.

4. The meditations on being on orphan and what an orphanage is like. There are so many orphans in kid lit and I thought this book offered a very down-to-earth, sad, grounded look at something that, weirdly, can be kind of glamorized in fantasy novels. show less