DaNae's Reviews > Bloomability

Thirteen year-old Dinnie has always lived a nomadic life with her family. Moving multiple times a year across the United States as her father chases his dreams. She is devastated when she is ‘kidnapped’ by her aunt and uncle and hauled across the ocean to Switzerland and plonked in a boarding school. This is a true Bildungsroman. Dinnie’s observant and generous nature allows her to make a vibrant cast of friends from all over the world and varied walks of life. She gradually turns inward and asks what she wants for her life.

Apparently Creech spent years with her husband teaching in such a school. I was enchanted and a little envious at the rigorous education that the students were given. Two units in particular stood out. One where, school-wide, students were given an understanding of the difficulty and problems all over the world. Yes, it was too much at once, but I’ve come to understand that young people this age have hearts ready to absorb and build empathy. The other was where they were asked to think. It was a unit built to bring out debate and challenge preconceptions. The writing was masterful.

One a slightly off-topic note: This ends my year of reading a children’s book set in each decade from 1900. I have love it, and will continue the tradition. It has been enlightening. It may be that Creech is just a superior author, but I find her ability to stand back and allow her characters to think and make choices so much more refreshing than the abundance of books published today, that are full of of platitudes on what is socially acceptable. I find them, the platitude books, similar to my 1940s book, THE WHITE HORSE, where gender rolls were painfully locked in place. The ‘lessons’ to be learned may be an about face, but both are delivered the same bludgeoning subtly .