The Earth Kitchen - Hardcover

Bryant, Sharon

3.52

27 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060296062 ISBN 13: 9780060296063

Publisher: Harpercollins, 2002

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In 1963, twelve-year-old Gwen tries to find the path to recovery in a mental ward.

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About the Author:

Sharon Bryant has an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College. She lives with her family and black dog in Maine. The Earth Kitchen is her first novel.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8-Twelve-year-old Gwen, a patient in a state psychiatric hospital in the early 1960s, worries that there will be an atom bomb attack. She believes that her parents were killed in one that she survived, but there was actually a catastrophic automobile accident that she has repressed from memory. Early in the story, reality and Gwen's fantasy world blur together. When a little bird flies by her window with something in its beak that drops to the ground, the child goes in search of the object, a little gold key, which she picks up and keeps hidden. The key is symbolic to her, but only much later is its full significance revealed. As the plot progresses and she emerges from a stay in a fantasized forest, in a room in a tree where all her needs are met, Dr. Stone helps Gwen, and, thankfully, readers, to understand that for months she has been "gone," living in a safe place in her mind while sorting out her parents' deaths. This is a complex book that may require too much of its audience, who may fail to make the connections needed for a true understanding of the story. The mixing of reality with Gwen's confusing inner world is difficult to follow. Further, modern children need far more background than the story provides about the Cold War era. The prose is lovely, especially the descriptions of Gwen's time in the "earth kitchen." However, this is definitely a book with a small potential audience, for a few special readers.
Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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