Tender - Softcover

Hobbs, Valerie

3.83

178 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142400750 ISBN 13: 9780142400753

Publisher: Puffin, 2004

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After her beloved Gran dies, fifteen-year-old Liv goes to California to live with the father she has never known and must adjust to his gruff ways and his life as an abalone diver, so different from her life in New York City. By the author of Carolina Crow Girl. Reprint.

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About the Author:

Valerie Hobbs is the award-winning author of many novels for young people. Her books, including, Tender have garnered starred reviews from prestigious publications such as Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 8 Up-Fifteen-year-old Liv's life undergoes seismic upheaval when her grandmother, the strong, urbane woman who raised her, dies and leaves her to reconnect with her estranged father. Understandably bitter as well as grieving, the teen must leave New York City, her best friends, and her usual haunts and habits to meet the man who deserted her when his wife died in childbirth. The tiny coastal hamlet near Santa Barbara, CA, and her father, an abalone fisherman of extraordinarily few words and apparently fewer emotions, present Liv with so many psychological and physical challenges that looking back becomes a luxury. As she did in Carolina Crow Girl (2001) and Charlie's Run (2000, both Farrar), Hobbs gives readers a strong and personable protagonist caught in a complex series of events that offers contemporary echoes of folkloric themes. Here, Liv is a kind of banished princess, but it is her father who must be awakened from a 15-year-long disenchantment. As she struggles to come to terms with her new home, Liv befriends her father's girlfriend as well as a young man her own age who may or may not offer a romantic possibility in the future. The title, besides the obvious play on the characters' emotions, refers to the job she takes aboard her dad's boat. Hobbs's storytelling pace is quick without feeling rushed, drawing readers in immediately and inextricably. Each character becomes a person whom teens will understand, whether with sympathy or hesitation, and by book's end, Liv's future looks as though it will continue to be interesting.

Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA

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