Sa- WEET! A book about cake!!! Wait, but the book says it is about a young girl who loses her mother. Gasp! That is way too sad. Can't do it.
Enter Elvis. Elvis Babbit, that is.
Elvis is my new favorite 10 year old. She is smart, efficient and curiously unemotional. Even when her mom disappears and is found dead months later. (ok, so that part was true.)
This book is not really about grief though. It is not even about loss. It is definitely not sad. It is triumphant. This story is more about Elvis and her sister Lizzie and how they go about trying to figure out life. They each have their "issues" and their remembrances of their wild and crazy and crazy smart mom, who gave up a promising career as a scientist to devote herself to her family. And to make rabbit cakes for every special occasion. Elvis wants to know why and how her mother died, of course - so she tries to research what happened. But then Lizzie starts acting out and her Dad is clueless and Elvis gets in trouble at school through no fault of her own and has to meet with a counselor (eye roll here) and ends up working at the zoo and can teach the zookeepers a thing or two about the sleeping habits of animals.......in other words, she finds her way. Set in deep south Alabama and organized over the 18 months following her mother's death, we watch Elvis grow up a little, but not too much, and we admire her tenacity in the face of difficulty. And we know at the end, that even though we might not have all the answers, Elvis is gonna be ok. Thank you very much.
Enter Elvis. Elvis Babbit, that is.
Elvis is my new favorite 10 year old. She is smart, efficient and curiously unemotional. Even when her mom disappears and is found dead months later. (ok, so that part was true.)
This book is not really about grief though. It is not even about loss. It is definitely not sad. It is triumphant. This story is more about Elvis and her sister Lizzie and how they go about trying to figure out life. They each have their "issues" and their remembrances of their wild and crazy and crazy smart mom, who gave up a promising career as a scientist to devote herself to her family. And to make rabbit cakes for every special occasion. Elvis wants to know why and how her mother died, of course - so she tries to research what happened. But then Lizzie starts acting out and her Dad is clueless and Elvis gets in trouble at school through no fault of her own and has to meet with a counselor (eye roll here) and ends up working at the zoo and can teach the zookeepers a thing or two about the sleeping habits of animals.......in other words, she finds her way. Set in deep south Alabama and organized over the 18 months following her mother's death, we watch Elvis grow up a little, but not too much, and we admire her tenacity in the face of difficulty. And we know at the end, that even though we might not have all the answers, Elvis is gonna be ok. Thank you very much.
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