Louisiana's Way Home by Kate Dicamillo
2018; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 72; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2018.0657
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
ResumoReviewed by: Louisiana's Way Home by Kate Dicamillo Deborah Stevenson DiCamillo, Kate Louisiana's Way Home. Candlewick, 2018 [240p] ISBN 978-0-7636-9463-0 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 4-6 Readers first met Louisiana Elefante in Raymie Nightingale (BCCB 4/16), where she became friends with Raymie Clarke and Beverly Tapinski when she turned up in their Florida town. Now twelve-year-old Louisiana is heartbroken to be on the move again when her grandmother, her only guardian, decides that it's time for them to take off without so much as a goodbye. Granny collapses when they get to Georgia, needing massive dental work, so they hole up in a little motel while she recovers. A lonely Louisiana, left on her own, makes friends with young Burke and forges ties with the local church, but then her world is upended more completely than she had ever imagined possible. Louisiana's narration gives a poignant look at the girl behind her guileless but fantastical stories, which are really just Louisiana's passing on what turn out to be her grandmother's creative obfuscations and delusions. Indeed, the main weight of the story is Granny's increasing dysfunction and its effect on Louisiana's life, as Louisiana cheerfully parrots deadbeat Granny's tips on how to blandish people into doing things for free and gulps down whatever food kind strangers provide the hungry girl. The tale is nonetheless gently told, as much fairy tale as realistic story, in language that's lovely in its plainspoken illuminations ("He was the kind of person who, if you asked him for one of something, gave you two instead"), with the focus on Louisiana's longing for connection and observations about the people she encounters on the road and in the small 1970s Georgia town. Ultimately this is a deeply sweet but not saccharine take on the old story of an orphan child lost and found, and readers won't have to know the first book to bond with Louisiana and wish fervently for her to find a home. DS Copyright © 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Referência(s)