Seeing Stars

February 22, 2010
Hammond (Hannah's Dream
) explores the world of wannabe child stars in this taut if sometimes melodramatic novel. At the center is Ruth Rabinowitz, a naïve but determined stage mom who leaves her husband in Seattle to move to L.A. with their 13-year-old daughter, Bethany, who is soon plunged into a torrent of auditions, rejections, and humiliations. Three other teen actors represented by Bethany's manager play tragic stereotypes in the novel and are more vividly rendered than sweet if unremarkable Bethany: Laurel is determined to achieve stardom before her terminally ill mother dies; meanwhile, Allison, a beautiful and deeply troubled girl from Houston, and Quinn, a gifted actor from Seattle, have both been abandoned by cruel stepfathers and weak mothers. Careerwise, the virtually orphaned kids fare better, but this seems incidental in Hammond's lonely, exploitative Hollywood. Though Ruth's struggle to balance conflicting responsibilities is predictably resolved, the girls' stories remain compelling amid the gritty details of the child-acting biz.

April 1, 2010
No matter how badly Bethy Rabinowitz wants to be a star, its entirely possible that her mother, Ruth, wants it even more. Why else would she pull the teenager out of school and leave their comfy home, good friends, and loving family in Seattle to schlep all the way to Los Angeles just to live in a seedy apartment among other ambitious stage mothers and their dubiously talented offspring, all of whom are competing with Bethy for the few paltry roles available? With her less-than-conventional looks, Bethany Ann Roosevelt, as she is now known, may not be the most marketable commodity in Mimi Roberts talent agency, but that doesnt stop the unscrupulous manager from devising ever more costly ways of keeping the Rabinowitzes hopes alive that someday Bethy will get the callback that will lead to her big break. Lambasting the entire coterie of misfit hangers-on that comprise the child-actor community, Hammond demonstrates how families must eventually confront hard truths as they differentiate between happiness and desire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)