Anybody Shining

Starred review from June 2, 2014
Twelve-year-old Arie Mae Sparks is imaginative and full of energy—qualities that often translate to “awful strange” in her small mountain town in 1920s North Carolina. With the aim of cheering up her mother and making a much-needed friend, Arie Mae begins writing letters to a cousin she’s never met, the daughter of an estranged aunt. Her letters go unanswered, but in the meantime, Arie Mae meets a visiting boy named Tom. “Cousin Caroline, have you ever seen anyone who shined?” writes Arie Mae. “Well, this boy did. Even though he walked with a limp and was a little bit sideways, he was shining.” The two traipse through the woods, which are supposedly haunted by “haints,” but Tom’s heart condition could mean the loss of Arie Mae’s only friend. Arie Mae’s openheartedness and yearning for connection make for a deeply poignant story, one with a richly realized setting and cast. As Arie Mae begins to see her life in a new light, Dowell (The Second Life of Abigail Walker) examines the clash between city and country life and what true wealth really means. Ages 10–12.

August 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-Arie Mae Sparks is pining for one true friend. Instead of waiting to see if one turns up, she sends a letter to a cousin she has never met, Caroline, whose mother left the mountains of North Carolina long ago. There is no reply but Arie Mae isn't easily deterred. She keeps writing about her family and all the local happenings. Two ladies have come to the mountains to both preserve the culture they find there and to improve the residents' lot in life by teaching them traditional crafts and life skills. These "songcatchers" love Arie Mae's mother's ballad singing, largely because those songs originated in the mountains. By the same token, they loathe anything new (like the songs Arie Mae's father is fiddling) because those will eventually dilute the unique local culture. Arie Mae finally finds a kindred spirit in Tom, a young boy with a twisted foot and a burning desire to be a news reporter, whose family is visiting from Baltimore. Arie Mae leads Tom to all the colorful places her home has to offer until Tom's mother warns her that Tom has a weak heart and shouldn't be traipsing about the mountains. Dowell's latest is a sweet story told through the protagonist's one sided correspondence, mixed with first person narrative. Arie Mae is a natural storyteller and the beauty and the simplicity of life in the mountains of North Carolina in the 1920's seeps through the pages. It's also a satisfying tale of mending fences.-Kathy Cherniavsky, Ridgefield Library, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2014
Life in a 1920s North Carolina mountain community is warmly detailed through letters 12-year-old Arie Mae Sparks writes to a cousin she's never met.Lonely despite her loving and dependable family, Arie longs for a real friend. She sets her sights on a visitor: Tom Wells from Baltimore, whose family is visiting the nearby settlement school as a work of mercy and cultural embassy. Arie boldly offers Tom just what he needs-an adventure-even as he gives Arie a sense of herself as storyteller. Dowell's voice for Arie is bright, earnest and observant, and Arie's mountain speech with its formal phrasing and different grammar is richly and sweetly conveyed. Dowell conveys a difficult way of life without pity. As Arie says of Harlan, the abandoned boy informally adopted by her parents, "You can't help but admire a boy like that. Even when he's just snuck under the table and tied your shoelaces to the table leg. You might clobber him but you stay filled with admiration all the same." Traditional ways and new ones, well-off city folk and struggling, self-sufficient mountain people are shown in contrast, each changing the other. A passing reference to "a clutch of Indian squaws" is unfortunate. Still, Arie is a superbly appealing girl, and the details and encounters of her daily life offer a fine glimpse of a particular time and place. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

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