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Summary
Summary
Almost every life is profoundly touched--and complicated--by a sibling relationship. In intimate childhood portraits of brothers and sisters, Siblings joins Nick Kelsh's exquisite black-and-white photography--free of all sentimentality--to Anna Quindlen's wry and tender essays. Here are forgotten moments, naked emotions and conflicting urges, to be treasured in the rediscovery. Infant toes curl against each other, brothers fight tooth and nail, a toddler views a new baby with horror and later touches it with love. The raw reality of their interactions, transcending the children's own loveliness, is mirrored in nuances wittily pinpointed by the text.Siblings captures and reveals an undying dynamic at its very source--for siblings now grown, and for their parents and grandparents.
Author Notes
Author Anna Quindlen was born in Philadelphia on July 8, 1953. She graduated from Barnard in 1974 and serves on their Board of Trustees.
Quindlen worked as a reporter for the New York Post and the New York Times and wrote columns for the Times. She won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary before devoting herself to writing fiction.
She has written both adult fiction (including Object Lessons, Black and Blue and One True Thing, which was made into a motion picture starring Meryl Streep) and children's fiction (Happily Ever After and The Tree That Came to Stay). Her title Alternate Side made the bestseller list in 2018.
Currently, she is a columnist at Newsweek. Her title Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
YA-Quindlen writes with her usual expertise on the subject of life with brothers and sisters. Kelsh's photographic vignettes effectively illuminate the essays. "The Baby" is prefaced with a full-page depiction of a tiny, befrilled, thoroughly feminine little girl surrounded by six older brothers, each outfitted in distinctive sports gear. "Super Sisters," "Irish Twins," and the opening "Siblings" are embellished with black-and-white photos that show the dynamics of human relationships within the home. Frustration, dependence, exasperation, and responsibility as experienced by both younger and older siblings in the seesaw of family life are all explored. Perhaps the negative encounters are the more ruefully revealing. Quindlen sums it up in a passionate statement featured in bold type, "Oh how I hated that little boy, and how I loved him, too." In "Super Sisters," she explores a family in which the oldest girl takes over the role of mother. Even middle schoolers can relate to the situations described, reflect upon their long-term effects, and enjoy a wistful and humorous sense of dj vu.-Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The sequel to Naked Babies (1996) considers the longest intimate relationship most people ever know. Quindlen, who was a little off in the text for Naked Babies, grabs and holds with what she says about being brothers and sisters. As the eldest of five, who was pressed into service as what she calls a supersister when her mother died, she speaks with great authority, especially when she concludes that for siblings, "there is no ice to break." Kelsh's pictures are slightly less grabby this time, but then babies' appeal is aided by hardwired biology: part of being human is paying attention to them. These pictures' subjects--all (save two) preadolescent, from toddlers to preteens--are plenty cute, though, and Kelsh doesn't seem to have goosed anything out of them (more likely, they did that to one another). So all together the photos resemble the family snapshot album that a consummate professional might amass. But will Kelsh and Quindlen's next be Big, Hairy Teenagers? --Ray Olson
