Sarah Dooley

I sort of expected a book about girls named Fella and Zany going on a road trip with their mother's ashes and a dog named Haberdashery to have a lot of humor in it. It definitely did not. This was a sad and sorrowful reflection on death, loss, grief, and all that goes with those things. It was an absolutely wonderful book... just not a funny one.
Fella and Zany (12 and 16) are the daughters of a lesbian couple. Each is the biological daughter of one of their mothers, but they both view both moms as their mothers. But Mama Lacy has died young of cancer. Afterwards, Fella's wealthy, reserved, formal and traditional grandmother, Mrs. Madison, gets custody of her, while Zany stays with Mama Shannon. As the book opens, Zany has broken into the other grandmother's house to steal Mama Lacy's ashes, with the plan of taking them from West Virginia to Asheville, NC during the night and scattering them near their old home in that liberal and eccentric town. She ends up taking Fella (still in her pajamas and bathrobe) and Mrs. Madison's dog, Haberdashery, along as well. Things start going wrong with the plan almost immediately, and continue to go wrong the further they go. But rather than the slapstick humor of crazy events in the middle of the night, they are all wrought with sadness. I shed a lot of tears in this one.
(Oddly, I think Richard Peck or Barbara Park could have told essentially the same story and it would have been hilarious.)… (mehr)

Sasha is a young girl living in foster care. For a long time it was Sasha her brother Michael and her father. The coal mines took her father. Michael is her everything. He tells her that one day they will leave the small town of Caboose. Before that can happen her firefighter brother is killed on the job.
Sasha’s reflex reaction is to run away. Sasha is introduced to poetry. Through this she finds a way to find herself, to deal with those shadows in her soul. This book was so much more than I expected. I thought it would be a simple book with some nice poetry. Instead I found a girl who has lost her way. While in foster care she learns she is related to the neighbors. This story is full of different layers. There are so many things for readers to relate to, loss, death, foster care, finding your way through the hardships of poverty. There are so many things this book can teach. I absolutely loved it.… (mehr)