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Summary
Summary
In this sensitive and poignant portrayal, Sarah Dooley shows us that life, like poetry, doesn't always take the form you intend.
When her brother dies in a fire, Sasha Harless has no one left, and nowhere to turn. After her father died in the mines and her mother ran off, he was her last caretaker. They'd always dreamed of leaving Caboose, West Virginia together someday, but instead she's in foster care, feeling more stuck and broken than ever.
But then Sasha discovers family she didn't know she had, and she finally has something to hold onto, especially sweet little Mikey, who's just as broken as she is. Sasha even makes her first friend at school, and is slowly learning to cope with her brother's death through writing poetry, finding a new way to express herself when spoken words just won't do. But when tragedy strikes the mine her cousin works in, Sasha fears the worst and takes Mikey and runs, with no plans to return. In this sensitive and poignant portrayal, Sarah Dooley shows us that life, like poetry, doesn't always take the form you intend.
Praise for Free Verse-
Author Notes
Sarah Dooley graduated from Marshall University in 2006. She was a special education teacher who now provides treatment to children with autism. She is the winner of the 2012 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. She has written several books including Body of Water, Livvie Owen Lived Here, and Free Verse.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-7-The West Virginia coal mining town of Caboose seems to be to blame for the mounting losses of everyone Sasha loves. First her mother walks out and doesn't come back. Then her father dies in a mining accident. And finally her caretaker older brother Michael dies while fighting a fire. Angry and los t, the seventh grader initially shuts down everyone around her. Her journey through grief is made possible by a certain resilience of those around her and her willingness to see the neighbor kid Mikey, a distant relative, as a friend. That opening allows other friends to appear, and she soon joins a poetry club where she discovers the healing power of putting her feelings and ideas into words. Ostensibly motivated by a scholarship contest, Sasha is not really going to be immune to pain in the future, but she's finding a way to cope. The changes in her life, the anguish she feels, and her journey forward are expertly portrayed through Dooley's use of first-person narration, which is sensitive and gentle without being soft or sentimental. The poetry is wonderful and feels authentic to Sasha's years without being unduly adult. Various verse forms are explored, including haiku, cinquain, and quatrain. VERDICT What could have been a mushy tearjerker resonates with emotional authenticity in Dooley's deft hands; an excellent purchase for upper elementary and middle school collections.-Carol A. Edwards, Formerly at Denver Public Library, CO © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Dooley (Body of Water) brings to life the hardscrabble existence of residents in the fictional town of Caboose, W. Va., through the eyes of 12-year old Sasha, as she adjusts to living with her new foster mother, Phyllis. Sasha's matter-of-fact narration belies her anguish at repeated losses: her mother's disappearance and the deaths of her coalminer father and firefighter brother. Stressful events (Phyllis singing Sasha's mother's song, a school bully's teasing) trigger violent or disassociated responses, which Sasha can't remember ("There's this thing that happens sometimes") or which compel her to run away. While Sasha feels pressed to fulfill her brother's wish that she escape Caboose, her discovery of cousins next door presents her with the daunting awareness of more people to love (or to lose) and her power to make choices. A 60+ page section of Sasha's poetry powerfully reveals how she uses poetic forms like haiku, quatrains, and epistles to express overwhelming feelings. In this gripping story, Dooley balances a clear-eyed depiction of families wrestling with addiction, financial stress, and trauma with the astonishing resilience of children and the human capacity for love. Ages 10-up. Agency: Laura Langlie Literary Agency. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A troubled teen discovers the therapeutic balm of verse. In a backwoods West Virginia mining town beset by poverty and environmental hazards, 13-year-old narrator Sasha Harless finds herself reeling from the loss of her guardian brother, Michael, whose recent death magnifies the sense of abandonment she first encountered at age 5, when her mother left them, and again at 8, after their father was killed in a mining accident. Michael's death places Sasha under the protection of a kindly foster mother, who attempts to provide stability, but Sasha suffers from anxiety and violent outbursts when overcome by disturbing emotions, especially when grief "blows through me like a cold wind, thundering for me to go, to get out, to move." Sasha acts out at school and runs away repeatedly, taking a beloved cousin with her once with sobering consequences. Sasha remains intent on leaving town until she's exposed to poetry in English class and begins to find "something about the shortness of haiku feels good." Dooley cleverly weaves into her novel different verse forms, which Sasha attempts for a poetry club she joins, giving her protagonist poet some creative focus, the freedom to experiment with self-expression, and the courage to stay put long enough to let the strength of her emotions settle inside. Dooley winningly combines engaging plot twists and rich character development with the introspective and thematic power of poetry: not to be missed. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Five, seven, five the pattern of haiku is the combination for Sasha to open the door to her poetic self. The 13-year-old lives in Caboose, West Virginia, and if it wasn't for bad luck, she'd have no luck at all: her mother walked away, her father died in the mines, and her brother was killed in the line of fire, leaving foster mom Phyllis to do her best with egg-salad sandwiches served on the porch at four in the morning. Sasha, meanwhile, tries to manage her desperate life, but blackout rages keep setting her back. Thankfully, a school counselor, new friends, and a poetry club with an unlikely leader help Sasha begin a life with her next-door cousin, Mikey, and his dad, Hubert. Through the club and its contests, Dooley subtly exposes readers to poetic forms that invite engagement, understanding, and expression, while Sasha and her extended family are depicted with a sweetness reminiscent of Cynthia Rylant a southern soulfulness that is warm even as it reveals the downtrodden struggles of a mining community. With a lifetime goal of leaving Caboose behind, Sasha has to wonder why it is that we leave home when the only family we know is there.--Bush, Gail Copyright 2016 Booklist