Skip to main content

May 2015


Cicada Summer (Kate Constable)


I stumbled across Cicada Summer in a very "professional" attempt to increase my general knowledge of junior fiction. I had heard of Kate Constable, most recently through her acclaimed novel Crow Country, which won the 2012 CBCA Young Readers Book of the Year (haven't read it yet - should do soon!)  Cicada Summer wasn't quite what I expected, mainly because I totally judged the book by it's cover and didn't read the blurb at all.  Regardless though, I found it to be quite an engaging story, and surprisingly atmospheric for a junior fiction novel.

Eloise doesn't speak much.  Actually, she doesn't say anything at all, and hasn't really spoken since her mother passed on a wee while back.  Instead, Eloise speaks through her art, as she is quite a talented artist.

Eloise's father, who is an "entrepreneur" and forever chasing his next big bucks breakthrough, has just been given a beautiful, but decaying art deco mansion in the country, courtesy of his sharp-witted and somewhat recalcitrant mother, Mo.  Mo may have a lot of sass, but she also has agoraphobia - and doesn't leave the house.  Whilst Eloise's father heads to the city to chase down investors in the mansion, he leaves Eloise with her grandmother, who then leaves Eloise to her own devices.  And so Eloise begins to explore her new surroundings, and it's from here that things take a change for the spooky and strange...

This is a sweet story that manages to touch on a wee bit of everything.  Grief, family relationships, immigrant families, mental illness, ghosts, time travel (yes, time travel), and art.  If that sounds like a weird mix, well, it is.  But Kate Constable manages to bring it all together in a quite engaging and (as I mentioned previously) atmospheric story.  Definitely one for the girls, I would recommend Cicada Summer for ages 8-12.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using librarian skills to uncover a network of dodgy shopping sites!

In all my posts over the years I'm not sure if I ever mentioned I am an avid steampunker.  Like many of my quirky fellow librarians, I love a good dress up and recently found myself searching for a great pair of boots to go with the Steampunk Aviator Superhero costume I'm assembling (trust me, it will work!). One evening whilst idly thumbing through Pinterest I found a picture of these undeniably AWESOME combat-boot style boots.  I followed the link to the website ( www.chichola.com ) and although it didn't look dodgy and offered PayPal, I am a cautious online shopper and always check the customer reviews first.  They were 1000% abysmal.  Like the kind of reviews that say SCAM, THEFT and CAN I LEAVE 0 STARS.  So despite loving the shoes, I was definitely not parting with my money on this occasion. Fast forward a couple of months and I see an ad for Victorian-style cosplay boots in my Insta feed.  Did I mention that I am an avid steampunker? ...
24 comments
Read more

Academic vs. Public

For those of you who have followed my story from the beginning (yeah, just me!) the whole idea of The Ambidextrous Librarian is that I am a newbie librarian working two jobs; one in a public library and the other academic.  I try to blog about my experiences and provide a bit of insight into each library environment, maybe provide other newbies with a bit of an idea what each is like.  My version of worldly wisdom and all that! But enough intro - I'm sure you're dying to hear my thoughts. Since the beginning of the year I have been getting a lot of shifts at the academic library. These were very welcome, not just for the extra bucks but because the job gave me interesting things to do - long term projects that require me to plan and create and research and present things. I've made it sound all very high-brow but let's not get too excited, it's basically just a Digital Literacy learning plan for struggling new tertiary students.  Still, I was part of a ...
2 comments
Read more

The Weekend Recharge

Yesterday, I decided to kick start my blog writing again and I joined #blogjune.  I have been ignoring my blog lately and have been regretting it and feeling more than a little bit guilty.  My reasons have been very noble.  I have been working. Working, working, working - with a little bit more working on the side. You see, I was recently promoted and made full time.  It's only a temporary secondment, but hey, it's good experience and good for the CV yadda, yadda.  But what I didn't realise was how much this change in circumstance would totally take it out of me.  Like, I am completely knackered.  How did I ever work full time in my previous career?  How does anyone work full time at all!?!  I have tried to explain this phenomena to my friends who have seen less and less of me these last few weeks.  Librarianship is very tiring.  It's physical, what with pushing the carts around and running around the library and shelving heavy bo...
2 comments
Read more