Reviews
“Cora, the central character in Laura Geringer’s first novel has grown up without knowing her father and feels incomplete without him. Her mother explains his absence by saying that he was “a little crazy.” Cora and her best friend Charley take notes about the crazy people they encounter in the park. They worry about the tenuous division between sanity and insanity and, like Frankie in Carson McCullers’s THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, align themselves closely with the crazies. Cora dreams of her father and is sure he will visit her. In fact, he does appear at the end of the novel but by that time, Cora has realized he will never be a part of her family…Cora and Charley are intricately drawn, sympathetic characters. They are both struggling with issues of identity, complicated by the fact that neither has a father. Geringer’s prose is filled with imagery and Cora’s dream life is as strong and rich as her everyday life. Geringer does a particularly fine job of depicting in simple language the complex emotions of her twelve-year old heroine. Her impressive first novel is remarkable for its restrained storytelling and deft characterization." --The Horn Book, Starred Review
“Cora’s inner life is fascinating, rich with interconnected leitmotifs—jump rope rhymes, angels and madmen, science and magic, ideas within ideas. Carefully structured and beautifully written , it’s a story that, like Paterson’s PARK QUEST, makes a mother’s pain at being abandoned comprehensible without losing focus on its effect on her child…Geringer creates a protagonist of integrity who is assimilating difficult facts about her past while becoming more sensitively attuned to her mother and closest friend. An unusually fine first novel.” --Kirkus, Starred Review
"Beautiful, enticing and powerful." --Publisher’s Weekly
“Cora… is a troubled, original, thoroughly engaging protagonist. The characters are portrayed with humor and insight. This is a thoughtful, absorbing story about a young girl who discovers that as one door closes another opens.” --School Library Journal