Grass and Sky

Fraustino, Lisa Rowe

ISBN 10: 0531086739 ISBN 13: 9780531086735

Publisher: Orchard Books, 1994

Synopsis

A young girl faces painful truths about her grandfather, solves a family mystery and brings them all closer, and triumphs in the face of male skeptics by displaying her Little League pitching prowess

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-6-Timothea, 11, always wanted a relationship with her grandfather. Suddenly, after years of no contact with him, her parents decide a trip to his home in Maine is warranted. Timmi is forced to go along, even though it means missing an important baseball game. No reason is given for the trip, and Timmi is at first annoyed by Grampy's sense of humor, rustic life style, accent, and boring tall tales. Gradually, after she and her sister spend time with him while their parents attend a high-school reunion, she becomes fond of the man. When she discovers that her grandfather's drinking problem is what caused the family estrangement, she understands the reasons for her parents' silence. All is resolved so that Grampy can die in peace a few months later. The hints at what is really going on are broad, and while readers know that there has to be some reason behind the story, the narrator's intrusive asides about baseball, her whining and complaining, and her mocking of Grampy's accent do little to compel them to find out what it is. That the revelation suddenly "poured into my mind, fuzzy like scenes from a very old movie" only points to the weaknesses in both plotting and phrasing.
Susan Knorr, Milwaukee Public Library, WI
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

First-novelist Fraustino introduces a refreshingly unorthodox heroine--Timmi Lafler, starting pitcher on her baseball team and an avid reader of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine . The 11-year-old is not at all pleased when her father announces that the family will be visiting Grampy at his cabin on a Maine lake. Not only will Timmi miss what she considers the best two weeks of baseball season, but she still resents that her paternal grandfather never answered the letters she painstakingly wrote to him five years earlier. She stubbornly and relentlessly rebuts the elderly--and obviously ailing--man's kind overtures and is downright unpleasant at times. But as Timmi learns about Grampy's past (he is a recovering alcoholic) and the truth about the breakdown of his relationship with Timmi's father, her resistance melts and she makes peace with Grampy before his death. Though Fraustino's novel contains solid, believable characters and several affecting scenes, some turns of plot just don't ring true (including Timmi's sudden, 11th-hour recollection of a nasty confrontation between her father and grandfather that took place when she was in kindergarten). Unfortunately, heavy foreshadowing makes for a predictable outcome. Ages 9-13.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orchard Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0531086739
• ISBN 13: 9780531086735
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 155