The Potter's Wheel

Johnston, Norma

3.57

21 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0688064639 ISBN 13: 9780688064631

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1988

When sixteen-year-old Laura attends her wealthy, strong-willed grandmother's birthday celebrations in a village in Pennsylvania her grandmother is restoring, she becomes dramatically reacquainted with various relatives, hears of the dissolution of her parents' marriage, finds out some of her own strengths and talents, and learns what makes her grandmother interfere so forcefully in the lives of her family.

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 7 Up Sixteen-year-old Laura Blair has led a pampered and seamless life. When her mother leaves for an assign ment in Europe, her often-absent archi tect father delivers Laura to a family reunion in Pennsylvania. There she is immersed in a round of celebrations overseen by the family's respectfully feared matriarch, Grandmother Serena (Laura's mother's mother), and attend ed by a collection of well-to-do cousins and auntsall either artsy overachiev ers or rebels. When Laura's mother writes that she and Laura's father are divorcing, Laura is devastated. How ever cloyingly classy these family members may appear to readers, they do rise to Laura's aid, and with their support and her own willfulness, Laura is able to define and resolve her rela tionship with her parents, her self, and her future. Johnston has written around a standard coming-of-age crisis with a somewhat unusual setting and cast of characters. Until Laura's parental problem is presented and she herself is humbled to a more human (and sympa thetic) character, the whole cool cast may have left readers feeling bored and uninvolved. It's only in the last third of the book that readers and the other characters are sufficiently drawn into Laura's problem that the mature reso lution becomes meaningful and satisfy ing. Catherine vanSonnenberg, La Jolla Country Day School, Calif.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

The rich texture of Johnston's writing gives this story of Laura and her kin immediacy, incorporating themes of family, self-discovery and love into a moving novel of depth and intricacy. Laura attends the family reunion at her powerful and charismatic grandmother's new home. Gran's "home" is a town newly restored to showcase art, music, antiques and memories. Laura and her cousins Sophie and Beth spend the summer with Gran, each discovering a new part of themselves and understanding better their family's complexity and instability. Sophie, with her carefree, European lifestyle, delicate Beth who conceals her desire to abandon dancing, and Laura, who discovers she is strong and more like her grandmother than she had ever expected, are some of the fully realized characters in this witty, potent offering. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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