![]() You waited with Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski for Ida Nee to show up and teach you how to twirl a baton. ![]() "You took your baton to baton-twirling lessons and stood under Ida Nee's whispering pine trees in front of Lake Clara, where Clara Wingtip had drowned. And then you got up in the morning and pretended that none of it had happened. People confessed to you that they were hungry all the time. "People left and people died and people went to memorial services and put orange blocks of cheese into their purses. Along the way, there are plenty of instances of life's random cruelty and a recognition that you can't change a lot of things - but you can fix some of them, and it feels great: Readers will relate to the struggles of RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE to perform the miraculous feat she thinks will bring back her faithless father, empathize with her and her friends as they deal with circumstances beyond their control, and cheer them on in their imaginatively weird exploits. Kate DiCamillo returns to the small-town Florida of her childhood in this poignant, funny, triumphant tale of a determined 10-year-old and her friends trying to set their messed-up world to rights. Your small acts of kindness and patience could be a lifeline for someone you hardly know, for years to come. So, fellow grownups, remember this when you interact with a child - any child. There is a huge lesson for adults in this book: the adults Raymie relies on to ground her as she deals with the very recent departure of her father are not close family - it's a lifesaving instructor from the previous summer, her father's receptionist, a nurse at a hospital ER. Reading together also allowed us to talk about life in the 70s, without cell phones, etc. But I have to admit my daughter surprised me with her understanding and maturity. I was glad we read this together so we could stop and talk about the choices the adults made, as well as the kids. Or we're too busy dealing with these major life events and forget to check in on our children. ![]() It sounds over the top but truthfully it's not - the book acknowledges the reality tweens see around them, which we adults hope to gloss over. While all her novels touch on adult themes, this one really packs a punch - affairs, poverty, abuse, aging and death. Her school has assigned both Winn Dixie and Edward Tulane in recent years and she loved them both so we're more or less reading the DiCamillo canon together now. My daughter, who just turned 11, and I still enjoy reading together. ![]()
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