| Mothers and daughters -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Alcoholism -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Family problems -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Family life -- New York (State) -- Juvenile fiction. |
| New York (State) -- Juvenile fiction. |
Available:*
Collection | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Juvenile Fiction | AIRGO | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
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Summary
Summary
In this uplifting companion to Prairie Evers , shy, introverted Ivy must find her footing when her reckless mom turns her world upside down.
Ivy has loved living with her best friend, Prairie, and being part of Prairie's lively, happy family. But now Ivy's mom has decided to take her back. Ivy tries to pretend everything is fine, but her mom's neglect and embarrassing public tantrums often make Ivy feel ashamed and alone. Fortunately, Ivy is able to find solace in art, in movies, and from the pleasure she finds in observing and appreciating life's small, beautiful moments. And when things with her mom reach the tipping point, this ability gives her the strength and power to push on and shape her own future.
Author Notes
Ellen Airgood (www.ellenairgood.com) is the author of Prairie Evers, which was a Bank Street Best Book and has won numerous state awards, and the adult novel South of Superior. She lives in Grand Marais, Michigan.
Topic:
| Negligence |
| Life changes |
| Family |
| Emotions |
| Art |
Reviews (4)
Horn Book Review
In this companion to Prairie Evers, Prairie's best friend and foster sister, Ivy, moves back in with her short-tempered, unreliable mother. While Ivy's mom believes that "Blakes didn't get happy endings," the eleven-year-old works hard to ensure her life takes a different trajectory. Determined Ivy is a sympathetic character, and readers will root for her to get the happy ending she truly deserves. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
In this companion novel to Prairie Evers (2012), Prairie's best friend and foster sister, Ivy, is unexpectedly and unhappily reclaimed by her mother. Leaving the Evers home, where she has been loved and supported, Ivy is fortunate to find the adult support of her fifth-grade teacher at her new school. Ivy's interest in movie making, however, is how she builds a new self-identity. When her mother, not surprisingly, proves unfit and unwilling as a parent after all, Ivy is placed in foster care with a woman who happens to be her new teacher's friend, another roll of life's dice that yields good emotional fortune. Airgood's characters are multilayered and compelling, and Ivy's story of triumph offers realistic hope and optimism. While Ivy and Prairie struggle with their now long-distance friendship, they each make new friends, find that they are able to combine alliances, and enjoy Ivy's unexpected future. Hand to fans of the quiet, resilient, and realistic heroes in Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising (2000) or lovers of the novels of Eva Ibbotson.--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Eleven-year-old Ivy Blake has spent most of a wonderful year with the Evers family. She loves Mom, Dad, Grammy, and especially her best friend, Prairie, and she knows that they love her too, but she can't quite feel like she belongs with them. When her mother asks Ivy to come back to live with her, the girl is conflicted but decides to go. Living with her mother again isn't easy-it means a new school, conflicting loyalties, borderline neglect, and the constant strain of her mother's negative outlook and dangerously uncertain temper. Ivy copes and creates through her sketchbook; drawing and writing about her days, the people she loves, and her dreams of making movies. Having dealt with a lot of tough situations in her short life, Ivy is mature and self-aware, but also realistically confused and emotionally awkward. As the title suggests, Ivy's character development is the core of the story, and its strength is Ivy's need to find her own identity and figure her problems out herself. Even the people who love her dearly and believe in her can't give her the answers-she has to find out for herself who she is and who she wants to be. With the exception of Ivy's mother, who is difficult but not a caricature, the people in Ivy's world are almost impossibly warm, intuitive, creative, and kind. This leaves the ending more in the realm of wish fulfillment than harsh reality, but Ivy's insistence on relying on herself ensures that readers will feel that she's earned it. Like Anne of Green Gables and many other neglected creative girls before her, Ivy is irresistible, and readers will be rooting for her all the way. VERDICT A thoughtful and sweet story about finding the family you need in order to be your best self.-Katya Schapiro, Brooklyn Public Library © Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
It seems like 11-year-old Ivy Blake's dreams are coming true when she is reunited with her mother, but she quickly realizes that this is not the happy ending she's been yearning for. Ivy was first introduced as Prairie's best friend in Prairie Evers (2012), but readers don't need to have read that volume to enjoy this installment of Ivy's story. When Ivy's mother comes to collect her from the Evers' home, where she's been staying, Ivy has high hopes. But soon her mother's bad judgment and temper return in full force, and Ivy is scared, lonely, and ashamed to tell the Evers family what's happening. Still, Ivy keeps a level head as she forges onward, finding new friends and a means of self-expression by cultivating a newfound love of moviemaking. In the end, Ivy will have to choose between the life her mother wants for her and the life she is building for herself. Because this contemplative tale is character- rather than plot-driven and doesn't shy away from Ivy's emotional turmoil, it can feel somewhat dispiriting in places. Persistent readers, though, will become invested in Ivy and ultimately find her story quietly satisfying. An uplifting coming-of-age story that foregrounds both the loss and the luster involved in creating an identity all one's own. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1: Ice Floe Ivy Blake drummed the eraser end of her pencil on page 162 of Science Grade 5 . A spring breeze reached in the open kitchen window and patted at her face. Polar bears have no natural enemies, except humans, she read. She gazed at a photograph of two polar bears standing face to face in a snow field, their arms stretched out to each other. The bigger one rested his paws on the little one's waist; the little one's paws were on the big one's shoulders. He had one leg kicked out to the side like he'd just done step two of the box step, which Grammy'd tried to teach her and Prairie last weekend. Ivy turned the page. Polar bears depend on ice floes for their survival. They use them to hunt from, live on, and as a place to rest when swimming. The warming of Earth's climate has caused these ice floes to thin and grow smaller. In this picture a polar bear stood on an ice floe not much bigger than the front porch, staring at the mountain range that lay in the distance. Ivy put her fingertip on the bear's nose, and then on his porch-sized ice floe. She had a feeling she knew how he felt. "Ivy!" Prairie called from outside. She was jogging up the path from the barn. "I- vee !" She burst into the kitchen, smacking the door up against the inside wall. "What're you doing?" "Studying." " Still? " Ivy made an apologetic face. "But you studied at lunch and on the bus and before dinner. How can you stand to study any more? And anyway--" Prairie made a helpless gesture toward the outdoors. Ivy knew what she meant. You didn't need a winter coat, finally. But studying in the kitchen in the early evening was always one of her favorite parts of the day. The room wrapped itself around you like one of Mom Evers' blankets. There were colorful wooden chairs along the walls that Dad Evers had repainted and quilts stacked in piles waiting to be sold at the farmers' market. The windows were filled with plants and Dad Evers' painted birdhouses, and a dusty catnip mouse lay abandoned by Pup on the floor. Tonight Mom Evers was working at her sewing machine, Grammy was reading, and every now and then Dad Evers came in for a sheaf of stencils or a smaller paintbrush. It would've been perfect, the hum of the sewing machine the soundtrack to their quiet industry, except for Prairie. Her cheeks were red, her eyes sparked, she smelled like air and dirt. "That test tomorrow is not going to be easy, you know," Ivy said. "I just want to do well." "Well, okay, but can't you take a break? Come outside, I'm making a goat pen." Ivy smiled at her best friend. Prairie'd decided she wanted to raise goats over the winter, and she wasn't the kind of person to wait around for the actual animal itself to show up to get started. "In a while, maybe." Prairie rolled her eyes. "You're going to ace the test, anyway, you always do." She banged back outside and Ivy went back to work. Polar bears show angry behavior when they lose their prey. They might kick snow or growl when they're disappointed. Grammy looked up from her reading. "You have hit those books a good long spell, Knasgowa." Knasgowa meant heron, in Cherokee. Grammy'd started calling Ivy that over the winter. She called Prairie Tatsuwa sometimes. That meant raven. Other times she called her Saligugi , which meant snapping turtle, and anyone could see why. Ivy smiled without looking up. "There is such a thing as overdoing it." Ivy tipped her head. "But I have to know this stuff. There's a test--" "Prairie's right, you know. You are going to ace it. You always do." "Because I study ." Grammy rolled her eyes. "That you do. But you also over-study." "That's not even poss--" "A person can overdo anything. It's like overstraining a muscle. Does more harm than good. I'm not telling you what to do, mind you--" Ivy made her face very polite but she couldn't help the skeptical glint in her eyes. Grammy laughed. "I'm just saying, I think you might've hit that magic point where you know the material and ought to just let it simmer away in the back of your brain for a while." She winked and went back to her book, and Ivy went back to hers. Polar bears look white, but their fur is actually transparent. When light bounces off them, they appear to be the same color as the snow around them. They blend in easily with their Arctic environment. Ivy drew a little polar bear at the bottom of her notebook page. She sketched an ice floe underneath it, then shaded in the surrounding open water with the side of her pencil lead. She made two mountain ranges out of the words May and June . May was close; June wasn't very far behind it. June, when the school year ended. On the plus side: the school year ended. And she was going to North Carolina with Grammy and Prairie for a two week vacation, which was pretty much the most exciting thing she'd ever dreamed of. On the minus side: the school year ended. And then what? What would her mom decide? Would Ivy have to move back in with her and George in Poughkeepsie? Did Ivy even, in a way that made no sense to her, sort of want to? She studied her drawing, her lips pursed. Then she flopped her books shut and slid them into her backpack. She grabbed her windbreaker off the hook beside the door and went to find Prairie. Once she was holding a splintery plank up against a post so Prairie could nail them together, she realized that the best part of her day had just changed, from studying in the kitchen, to this. Excerpted from The Education of Ivy Blake by Ellen Airgood All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.