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Fusco, Kimberly Newton.
TENDING TO GRACE
New York : Knopf, 2004.
IL YA
ISBN 0375928626

(2 booktalks)

Booktalk #1

"Turning to stone is hard work.  First you have to let the anger climb up from deep within you and as it turns over and over and rises up through your chest, you have to clamp your teeth over it and push it back down.  Then you sort of imagine yourself getting real heavy, folding over onto yourself, getting thick so nothing can reach the spot far inside that hasn't turned hard yet.  And you know that if you get it right, you're not so afraid."  Cornelia does her best to turn to stone.  Her mother abandons her at the home of a cranky old aunt.  And Cornelia tries to stop feeling.  And to stop wishing for her mother to return.  And to stop trying to care about the nutty old woman she's living with.

Booktalk #2

Cornelia is an expert at “turning to stone.” She doesn’t like to talk to anyone—they make fun of her. But, when she goes to live with her aunt Agatha, she is forced to talk. Will she resent Agatha for her straight-forward and honest thinking? Or will she find that Agatha needs help too? Cornelia’s entire life will change as she learns how to think for herself. (Prepared by: Maggie Horton, SCASL Young Adult Book Awards)

SUBJECTS:     Emotional problems -- Fiction.
                        Stuttering -- Fiction.
                        Mothers -- Fiction.
                        Aunts -- Fiction.

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