Sister Spider Knows All

December 1, 2003
Gr 4-6-Rox, 12, can count on one finger what she knows about her mother-her name, Helen. The girl's life consists of her grandmother, Mimi; her 23-year-old cousin, John Martin; and the "Show," a flea market where she helps sell grapes and other odds and ends to make ends meet at home. Then Lucy, John Martin's girlfriend, enters the picture. She comes from money and wants to change the way Rox's family looks at the world. Rox also finds the diary her mother wrote as a teenager and, with Lucy's help, begins to piece together a picture of the woman she never knew. Fogelin captures the fragility of this unique family with a lot of humor and great characters. The secondary figures add a lot to the development of Rox's personality, including the Show, which is a strong motivator in the protagonist's life. Set in Tallahassee, FL, the story has universal themes of coming of age and searching for one's identity. Reluctant readers will like the short, fast-paced chapters.-Shilo Halfen, Chicago Public Library

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2003
Gr. 6-9. Rox, 12, wants to be skinny, do okay in school, and find the mother who left soon after Rox was born. She may feel imperfect, but she knows how lucky she is to have tough grandmother Mimi and her older cousin, John Martin, taking care of her, and she feels right at home in Tallahassee, where she helps Mimi run a flea market stall that sells everything from lawn statues (saints and gnomes and rhinos) to "vintage" dolls. Then John Martin brings home a rich girlfriend, Lucy, and everyone changes--including Lucy. Delivered in a wry voice that swings from laugh-out-loud funny to wrenching sadness, Rox's narrative is neither sentimental nor condescending; details of place, people, and class conflict emerge in plain, poetic imagery, for example, "the cough of a pickup starting" or the smoke signals from Mimi's Marlboro. But one plot device doesn't work; Rox just happens to find her mom's teenage diary and reads it, bit by bit, on her "private journey." Enough with the convenient "discovery" of personal diaries; story matters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)