When the Stammer Came to Stay
by Maggie O'Farrell (Author) Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini (Illustrator)
The author of Hamnet explores sisterly affection and what it means to rediscover your voice--and yourself--in this illustrated storybook.
This is the tale of two sisters . . .
who had no idea that everything was about to change.
Quiet Bea keeps her shoes polished, folds her clothes every night, and alphabetizes her books. Her rambunctious sister Min wears torn trousers and wades into ponds to collect frogspawn. Above all, Min is a storyteller who loves to chat with everyone. But one day she chokes, and the words forming in her mouth never make it out. Words suddenly feel dangerous, unwieldly. Min is no longer herself--not with some strange creature stealing her words, a creature not even her sister can see. But that doesn't matter, because Bea sees Min. Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell pulls from her own experiences with stammering to create a realistic portrait of shaken self-confidence and how sharing painful situations with a loved one can make all the difference. Featuring expressive and detailed illustrations from Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini, this book will speak to readers who have ever lost a part of themselves--and found something new in return.
Locate at a Library Near You WorldCat is the world's largest library catalog, helping you find library materials online.
Find books about:
Publishers Weekly
At the start of this personal-feeling work from previous collaborators O'Farrell and Terrazzini (Where Snow Angels Go), disorderly, chatty Min lives with measured, tidy sister Bea in the attic of a home also occupied by their parents and three lodgers. Storybook-style ink and watercolor artwork shows Bea in neat ruffles and Min with trousers and a scraped shin. But everything changes one night during a household game, when Min finds that "her tongue seemed to be suddenly locked. Instead, the only sound she could make was S-S-S-s-s-s--." Similar experiences continue the next day at breakfast, en route to school, and at lunch. Later, in the mirror, she sees a smoke-like shape hovering above her, "seizing the words as they rose to her lips." Bea, suggesting that the occurrence is a stammer, identifies the shape as a "dybbuk, an undesirable spirit which takes up residence with a person, causing them great difficulties." A discussion of symbiosis helps Min embrace the dybbuk ("Try to think of your stammer as a friend.... Remember what it gives you") in this relational portrait. Protagonists are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 5-8. (Dec.)
Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
JUV039150 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Special Needs
JUV013070 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | Siblings
