Dove Song - Softcover

Franklin, Kristine L.

3.78

68 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0763632198 ISBN 13: 9780763632199

Publisher: Candlewick, 2006

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"Two young people take on more than they can handle in this anguished, reflective story set on the home front during the Vietnam War." — KIRKUS REVIEWS

A Minnesota Book Award Winner

"Both a sensitive story of friendship and family problems and solid historical fiction." — SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8-As army brats, 11-year-old Bobbie Lynn and her 13-year-old brother Mason have coped with unexpected moves and their mother's "delicate spells" before, but things get much worse when their father is sent to Vietnam. When their mother takes the children from Texas to Tacoma, WA, only Wendy Feeney offers the girl friendship. Bobbie Lynn is frightened, at first, by Wendy's severely retarded twin sister, skeptical of her new friend's deep belief in guardian angels, and puzzled by Mrs. Feeney's opposition to violence. When her father is reported missing in action, her severely depressed mother does nothing but sleep, leaving the children to scrounge for food, forge notes to their teachers, and, ultimately, to spoon-feed her. Only when Bobbie Lynn develops pneumonia does she reach out for the help they desperately need, only to discover that there really are angels all around, human angels, able and willing to give her family support. Franklin convincingly portrays attitudes of the late 1960s; the confusion and disagreement over the war; the Feeney family's open, uncomplicated Catholicism; and the fear and shame associated with handicaps of all kinds. This is both a sensitive story of friendship and family problems and solid historical fiction, especially for those who enjoyed reading about an earlier wartime in Mary Hahn's Stepping on the Cracks (Clarion, 1991) or Patricia Giff's Lily's Crossing (Delacorte, 1997).
Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Two young people take on more than they can handle in this anguished, reflective story set on the homefront during the Vietnam War. The news that their father is missing in action horrifies Bobbie Lynn and her brother, Mason, but sends their dependent mother spiraling into a breakdown far worse than any of her previous spells; after a violent outburst, she takes to her bed, smoking, crying, and rarely eating. While the children struggle to maintain an appearance of normality, scramble for money, and care for their mother, Bobbie Lynn meets Wendy, a fiery, perceptive classmate and her brain-damaged twin sister, who are part of a lively, welcoming family. Despite Mason's conviction that they're on their own, Bobbie Lynn is driven to call for help, and support arrives speedily from several directions. Laced with tears and searching internal questions, Bobbie Lynn's narrative takes on an intensity of feeling that will engage readers, though next to such stories of dysfunctional families as Jackie French Koller's A Place To Call Home (1995), or Patricia Martin's Travels With Rainie Marie (1997) the characters and story line is sketchy. Franklin (Eclipse, 1995, etc.) comes up with a pat resolution, including the revelation that Bobbie Lynn's father is alive, and ties up loose ends in a way that is not fully credible. (Fiction. 10-13) -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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