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Overview / 简介: |
| Ten-year-old Comfort Snowberger has attended 247 funerals--her family owns the local funeral home, after all. And even though Great-uncle Edisto keeled over with a heart attack and Great-great-aunt Florentine dropped dead--just like that--six months later, Comfort knows how to deal with loss, or so she thinks. She's more concerned with avoiding her crazy cousin Peach and trying to figure out why her best friend, Declaration, suddenly won't talk to her. But life is full of surprises. And the biggest one of all is learning what it takes to handle them. In this heartfelt and quintessentially Southern coming-of-age novel, Comfort will charm young readers with her wit, her warmth, and her struggles as she learns about life, loss, and ultimately, triumph. "I""ncludes reader's guide and a biography of the author." |
From Organization / 国外机构评价: |
| Grade 4-6–"I come from a family with a lot of dead people." So begins this narrative by 10-year-old Comfort Snowberger, who prides herself on taking death in stride–after all, her family owns and operates the funeral parlor in the small town of Snapfinger, MS. Then loss hits closer to home, first with the death of Great-uncle Edisto and, a few months later, with Great-great-aunt Florentine. During a storm on the way to the cemetery, flooding causes an accident involving Comfort; her irritating, emotional cousin, Peach; and her beloved dog, Dismay, who drowns. Interspersed throughout is the story of the girl's changing relationship with her friend Declaration Johnson, who seems to be dropping her. Comfort writes and submits "Life Notices" (as opposed to Death Notices) to the Aurora County News, along with such items as her "Top Ten Tips for First-rate Funeral Behavior" ("This is not a good time to remind the family that the deceased owes you money"), and, for friends, a recipe or two. Sensitive, funny, and occasionally impatient, Comfort is a wholly sympathetic protagonist who learns that emotions may not be as easy to control as she had assumed. While the book is a bit too long and some of the Southern eccentricity wears thin, this is a deeply felt novel. |
Foreign Customer Review / 国外客户评价: |
| The other day I was speaking to a employee of the publishing house of Harcourt, Inc. We chatted about this and that but eventually I had to ask. What, in this employee's opinion, was Harcourt's best bet for the 2006 Newbery Award? I was told that word on the street was that people were all ah-buzz over author Deborah Wiles', "Each Little Bird That Sings". I had not heard of this book myself. Despite the fact that I am a children's librarian, and despite the fact that the book was sitting easy-peasy on my bookshelf, I hadn't thus far deigned to take it down and give it a look-see. In doing so I saw all sorts of things that could make it an award winner. Death, good writing, and a dog who shuffles off this mortal coil. But beyond the obvious depressing aspects, Wiles shocked me with the quality of the book. It's peppered with folksy wisdom and tidbits of advice about "life", but never in a way that feels like the author's laying it on too thick. "Each Little Bird That Sings" is a delicate balancing act between humor and pain and solid sensible advice for getting through an uneasy world.
When you grow up in a funeral home like Comfort Snowberger has, you have a healthy understanding of death. And within a single year Comfort's Great-great-aunt Florentine and Great-uncle Edisto have joined the choir invisible. When Edisto died the funeral would have been beautiful had it not been for Comfort's scrawny, big-eyed, unable-to-quite-grasp-the-concept-of-dying, seven-year-old cousin Peach. Peach managed to faint into a punch bowl, throw up, scream, and generally (in Comfort's eyes) make a nuisance of himself. Now Florentine's funeral is coming up and Peach is in Comfort's life again. Even worse, her best friend Declaration Johnson has suddenly turned mean. Real mean. If it weren't for her dog Dismay, Comfort might never know how to get through the next few days. But it takes losing the most important thing in her world to get our heroine to realize what it is to forgive both yourself and others around you.
The book begins with a matter-of-fact mention that Comfort's Great-great-aunt Florentine and Great-uncle Edisto are both dead. When you read this, you're inclined to laugh. A serious subject taken with this much upfront honesty often elicits a nervous chuckle from the kid reading the book. Wiles then immediately tells you exactly who has died and why they were important to the world. Every character is a distinct individual and their every action is completely understandable. To Comfort, growing up with death every day, Peach's violent reaction to it is immature and ridiculous. She's unable to see it his way, consequently making him have to come over to her way of thinking by the story's end. Now I'm about to spout an opinion that will give away a big ole plot point. SPOILER ALERT, if you will. If you would like to read this book through and not have this detail spoiled for you, stop reading right now and just know that I think this story is top notch. A pip. Swell. Nifty. You get the drift. Okay, here's my spoiler. In the book the dog, Dismay, dies. Which technically makes this a "dead dog book". The libraries of America overflow with this genre. In a recent meeting with librarians from Brooklyn and Queens this book's name came up and someone categorized it as yet another "dead dog book". I hadn't read it, so I couldn't defend it, but it really is more than that. Yes, the dog dies. Offscreen, I might add. But because of the arc of the story, the dog had to die. Peach has to learn exactly how to deal with the death of not just old people who are ready to go on to the next world but also the young who might have done so much had they lived. And yet the book isn't depressing. Remarkable, no?
The book could easily have turned cutesy or, 190 degrees the other way, overly morbid. That it is neither of these is something just short of a miracle. About the time Peach has thrown himself into the coffin of Florentine and is refusing to let go of her neck... well that was the moment I was hooked. As an author, Wiles has guts. She knows just when to sustain a moment or bring it up short. And I challenge anyone to read the last sentence in the book (which is just a hair short of utterly brilliant) and NOT find yourself snuffling back a tear or two. Admittedly, I had a hard time understanding why Peach keeps getting taken to the funerals of the people he loves. In my family, children do not attend funerals. Period. But this is a different family with a different set of values and as such what they do is understandable. They think their kids should understand death.
To be perfectly frank, this book does exactly what the lamentable, "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan failed to. Where "Ida B" was all fawning treacle and too often felt like the author was trying too hard, "Each Little Bird That Sings" appears effortless. It's the kind of story that fellow author Joan Bauer tries to write for young teenagers but who also often falls into the overly saccharine trap of too-many-platitudes-too-little-prose. I was also amazed that author Katherine Hannigan can claim to be friends with such fellow big kiddie lit authors as Nancy Werlin, Deborah Hopkinson, and Norma Mazer. It is obvious that her contact with this talented helps her writing immensely.
There are plenty of titles out there meant to help kids understand death. "Mick Harte Was Here" by Barbara Park is probably the best known, but there are always old classics like, "Bridge to Terebithia" by Katherine Patterson and hundreds of dead dog books as well. Even younger titles like the recent "Michael Rosen's Sad Book" can help children deal with loss of one kind or another. "Each Little Bird That Sings" doesn't deal with children dying. Just older relatives and a beloved family pet. And how Deborah Wiles managed to balance the sweet with the serious with the funny is beyond me. I just know that this is a remarkable little book. There are lots of tears and lots of laughs and some highly satisfying writing going on here. A wonderful title that deserves a lot more attention.
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