Drawing Lessons

Grade 6-8-Rory's artistic talent has been nurtured at home and at school. Her father is a painter who has given her lessons since she was five. Now that she is a seventh grader, they have plans to paint a mural for her mother as a birthday present, but this idea is derailed when her parents separate. Rory then ceases to produce any art at all and cuts relations off with her best friend, Nicky, as well as her art teacher, secluding herself from all activities except brooding. A couple of months of such isolation come to a head when she finally confides in Nicky, and then confronts her father. Rory's precocious talent is both credible and engaging, whether or not readers have firsthand experience with the special vision a painter needs to bring life from the world to canvas or paper. The problems faced by Rory's parents are complex but comprehensible to their daughter and her peers (and to young teen readers who will appreciate the strengths of this first novel). Nicky is neither clone nor backup choir to the protagonist, but a distinct and rounded girl whose supportive abilities-and limitations-are believable. Mack provides excellent characterizations of both adults and adolescents, a moving and well-paced plot, and exquisitely interwoven themes of aesthetics and the multifaceted need for independence that humans of all ages can experience.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mack's first novel covers familiar ground, but she weaves together enough powerful symbols and striking images to make for a vibrant showing. Rory loves getting drawing lessons from her artist father. He teaches her to see objects for what they are--and to use her imagination to create the world that she wants. When he moves out on her mother and her, Rory feels betrayed and rejected. She can no longer draw without his hand to guide her. Even when her father finally tries to explain why he left, Rory's head feels "muddy, like a bucket of dirty paintbrush water." Only following a climactic confrontation with her father does Rory learn to use his lessons to start painting her own world, both literally and figuratively. The plot is thin and the conclusion predictable, but Mack's images are memorable, such as Rory's stomachache that feels "like thread pulled too taut through a sweater." Some metaphors are obvious (e.g., the actually dead family tree), but the consistent use of colors in place of heavy analysis is effective in reflecting the way that Rory sees the world. Ages 10-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A teenager suffers through her parents' separation in this smoothly stylized, if conventional, debut. Aurora's world comes crashing down when she catches her artist father nuzzling a model. Rory, a talented artist herself, furiously burns her sketchbook; suddenly he's gone, leaving Rory and her mother wallowing in teary guilt, sending back a letter with lines that infuriate: ``one day you'll understand,'' and ``someday, when you're older . . . '' Rory stops all painting and drawing, and curls up around the hurt, stonewalling even her best friend, Nicky. Rory's almost continual awareness of light and color gives her a convincing artist's voice, and Mack sets her back on her feet in the end, with the help of time, Nicky's loyalty, and a startling gift from her father: her charred sketchbook, rescued and repaired both as a sign of his love, and to remind her to believe in herself. Psychological insight here is but skin deep, and the characters play it pretty close to type, but readers may be affected by the story's overall emotional intensity. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Seventh-grader Aurora has been surrounded by art since birth. Her artist father, who is her primary caregiver, lovingly schools her in color, line, and perspective, their relationship strengthened by their mutual love of drawing. But this closeness is shattered when Aurora comes home one day to find him in a compromising position with one of his models, and he leaves the family, taking Aurora's artistic inclination and ability with him. In this first novel, Mack paints a picture of a young girl who must come to grips with who she is, after being disappointed by the father around whom she has built her identity. It's a painful, unfortunately common situation, carefully and realistically portrayed. The continual references to Aurora's color-laden thoughts eventually become intrusive, but Drawing Lessons is a simple book of surprising beauty and depth. It is a ray of quiet hopefulness for readers who see themselves redrawing themselves as their families change and grow. Frances Bradburn