Getting Near to Baby (2000 Newbery Honor Book) - Softcover

Couloumbis, Audrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0698118928 ISBN 13: 9780698118928

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2001

Synopsis

A Southern charmer for fans of Newbery Honor book Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Audrey Couloumbis's masterful debut novel brings to mind Karen Hesse, Katherine Paterson, and Betsy Byars's The Summer of the Swans—it is a story you will never forget. 

Willa Jo and Little Sister are up on the roof at Aunt Patty’s house. Willa Jo went up to watch the sunrise, and Little Sister followed, like she always does. But by mid-morning, they are still up on that roof, and soon it’s clear it wasn’t just the sunrise that brought them there. 

The trouble is, coming down would mean they’d have to explain, and they just can’t find the words. 

This is a funny, sometimes heartbreaking, story about sisters, about grief, and about healing.  Two girls must come to terms with the death of their baby sister, their mother’s unshakable depression, and the ridiculously controlling aunt who takes them in and means well but just doesn’t understand children. Willa Jo has to try and make things right in their new home, but she and Aunt Patty keep butting heads. Until the morning the two girls climb up to the roof of her house. Aunt Patty tries everything she can think of to get them down, but in the end, the solution is miraculously simple.

A Newbery Honor Book

An ALA Notable Book

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

About this title

From the Author:

Audrey Couloumbis on the writing process...

"While I'm writing, I don't worry about the usual character bio points, but there is another list of questions that I'm asking myself:

"10 observations this character would make
10 things he or she would fight for
10 decisions he or she would make
what he or she thinks about when daydreaming
5 sensitivities, and how they developed
5 of their personal childhood horrors
5 intentions they have, maybe 10
5 reasons for something they do or something about their appearance that is directly related to the story

"They may not all directly pertain to the story being told, but they tell me a lot about the character, just like they would tell me a lot about my friends.

"For me, if the character won't come, I'll write something else entirely, but I'll write twice as much. I'll write on how to write. In this very sure and certain voice that thinks it knows something. I'll write on what makes people read. I'll write on how to write fairy tales. I'll write about conflict or plot until I learn something about it, coughing up some of that internalized information like a cat's hairball. I'll write letters to the people I trade manuscripts with, critiquing their work if I'm not making progress on mine. I ignore my uncooperative characters entirely.

"If that doesn't work in a few days, I stop reading or writing anything else. I don't watch TV or movies. I do housework or gardening. And pretty soon, my characters come back muttering about a missed lunch. And we fry half a pound of bacon, or make popcorn, or get bags and bags of peanut M&M's and settle down in front of the computer."

Audrey Couloumbis was born in Illinois. She currently lives in upstate New York with her husband.

Copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap:

Approx. 4.5 hours
3 cassettes

Willa Joe is up on the roof at Aunt Patty's house. She went up to see the
sunrise, and Little Sister followed her, like she always does. But by
mid-morning, Willa Jo is still up on that roof, and she knows it wasn't just
the sunrise that brought her there. Audrey Couloumbis has perfectly
captured the pervasive feelings that can take hold when tragedy strikes--and
the slow, subtle revelations that come when one can finally get near to the
source.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0698118928
• ISBN 13: 9780698118928
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224