Western Wind - Softcover

Fox, Paula

3.55

98 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440409918 ISBN 13: 9780440409915

Publisher: Yearling, 1995

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Rebelling when she is sent to stay at her Grandmother's Maine island home after the birth of her brother, twelve-year-old Elizabeth befriends the strange son of her only neighbors and comes to unexpectedly respect her Grandmother. Reprint.

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From the Back Cover:

Twelve-year-old Elizabeth is angry about spending the summer with her grandmother in Maine. She's sure her parents want to be alone with her new baby brother. Elizabeth loves Gran, but she feels stuck on Pring Island in a primitive cottage with no hope of friends. Why is she really here?

Each day while Gran paints, Elizabeth explores and is slowly drawn to Aaron, the strange son of the only neighbors on the island. Then, almost without realizing it, Elizabeth feels closer to Gran and hears her words in a way she won't forget.

But nothing could prepare her for what was to come ... after that summer on Pring Island.

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book

From Booklist:

Gr. 6-9. Fox's work can be like a piece of fine lace. You admire its beauty and the delicate craftsmanship that went into its making, but you don't always know what to do with it. And sometimes you just get tired of so much lace. This is true of her latest novel, in which 11-year-old Elizabeth is sent to Pring Island off the coast of Maine to spend a month with her grandmother, a painter. Elizabeth doesn't want to go. The island has no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and just one other family. But mostly Elizabeth is hurt because she thinks her parents have sent her away so that they can spend time with her new baby brother--alone. Up to this point, Elizabeth is a recognizable 11-year-old kid: self-centered, afraid of being abandoned, utterly dependent on contemporary creature comforts. Yet in no time, Elizabeth is transformed. While Gran paints, Elizabeth combs the island, getting acquainted with nature. Suddenly she can only think in similes: the sky has "streaks of red as thin as paper cuts"; the path is "narrow as a snake, faint as a tracing"; the wind presses like "a great flat hand"--and that's all in the space of two pages. Elizabeth becomes Elizabeth Barrett Browning, junior version, and we are immediately suspicious that Fox has usurped Elizabeth's voice for her own. In order to inject a bit of action into this largely meditative story, Fox gives us the Herkimers, the other family on the island, and their wild son, Aaron, whom Elizabeth befriends. He's the sort of boy who says things like, "If you got really scared and started screaming, I'd go mad! I'd have to part the waters and escape to the mainland." Perhaps it is because Aaron is so alive while Gran is so obviously failing that the scenes between Elizabeth and Aaron have the most energy. There is a fascinating tug between Elizabeth's fear of people spurning her and Aaron's wish to reject others, until he finally does run away. Here's where Fox is at her best and most real in the story: examining the fear children feel when they think they're not wanted, juxtaposed against their intense desire to break familial chains and run free.Most problematic is the ending. Gran has a stroke, and Elizabeth must get her to a hospital. Though her parents knew Gran was seriously ill when they sent Elizabeth to the island, and though the adults debated back and forth, in the end they decided it would be too hard on Elizabeth if she were aware that her grandmother was dying. Elizabeth, though angry at first, concurs. She might not have seen the summer's magic if she had known what could go wrong. Perhaps the hours the two have spent sharing stories have been worth it to Elizabeth, but can one really believe she'd be sent to such a remote locale with a sick old woman in the first place? Even if you don't mind tripping over reality in a few places, it's still hard to envision that large numbers of children will be drawn to this rather ethereal book, especially with a dust jacket featuring a chair and some patchwork pillows, a painting that would look lovely on someone's wall but won't do much to enhance the book's popularity. Certainly, some will say that popularity isn't the issue. Just as we admire the lacemaker's way of intertwining threads, we admire Fox's ability to weave the subtleties of her theme into a work that, overall, is certainly well crafted. But to be appreciated, a piece of lace must be seen and a novel must be read. Who will read this seems at best uncertain. Ilene Cooper

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