HarperTrophy
ISBN: 978-0060730260
Published Dec 26, 2006
Paperback, 272 pages
“This could possibly be one of my
favorite books”, my 9-year-old son says to me. To me that says a
lot about this book! My son loves non-fiction but doesn't have a long
list of fiction books that he considers favorites. We found this
book on our family bookshelf when we were looking for books to read.
It was given to me by another book blogger. I decided to read it to
my son and we enjoyed every minute. My son said that the character of
Ida B really resonated with him. He totally liked her and understood
what she felt. He could relate to her.
Ida B is not your average 9-year-old.
She is homeschooled and lives on a large plot of land where she talks
to the trees and the brook and spends most of her free time outdoors
among the nature she loves so much. But her mother gets cancer, her
father is forced to sell part of their land to pay for the treatments
and Ida B is sent to school, a place she loathes because of a
previous bad experience in kindergarten. Now she will be going into
the third grade. Ida B is so angry that she feels her heart
hardening, cuts herself off from everyone, and puts together a plan
to save her world.
This book is brilliant. It's told from
Ida B's point of view and is really about her and how she sees the
world and deals with everything that happens to her. This is the main
reason my son could really relate to her. Ida B came across as real.
She was smart, funny and hurting. Our hearts went out to her. There
is a scene with Ida B gently caressing her mom's cheek as her mom lay
in bed sick from her treatments. My son spontaneously reached out his
hand and did the same to me which touched me enormously, and then we
briefly spoke of cancer when he asked me if I would ever get the
disease.
I think my son didn't want this book to
end because, when it did, he felt it was incomplete, probably because
it never showed the response of Ida B's classmate to her apology. I
liked the ending, but I understood my son's reluctance to let go of
this book. It's a beautiful story with an unforgettable character.
Highly recommended.
Note: This book is rated C = clean read.
Reviewed by Laura & Son
Disclosure: This book was from our personal library. We were not told how to rate or review this product.
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