My Father's Words

July 1, 2018

Gr 3-5-Fiona O'Brien and her brother, Finn, have a wonderful family in a home filled with love and humor. All that changes when their father, Declan, is killed in an automobile crash after he swerves to miss a child chasing a ball in the street. Fiona writes, "The days move slowly. Nights, too." With their mother returning to classes, Fiona takes responsibility for her little brother and tasks herself with finding ways to make Finn feel better. The answer comes via a notice from a local animal shelter that is looking for volunteers to help care for abandoned dogs. Fiona, Finn, and their friend Luke begin working there. Luke and Fiona walk the dogs while Finn reads to a depressed pup whose owner recently died. Slowly, Fiona and Finn find peace. The story's first-person narration by Fiona offers an immediate connection to readers, and sections of the book in a different typeface and font highlight her own personal reflections that are apart from the plot, which lends a solid authenticity to the gently flowing story. VERDICT This heartwarming title from an acclaimed author is a solid choice for school and public libraries seeking new bibliotherapy titles for children on loss and grief.-Anne Jung-Mathews, Plymouth State University, NH

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
When a freak accident kills their father, Declan, the O'Brien family must discover how to heal.When Declan makes eggs, they are typically runny, but when Fiona complains, he tells her, "It's the eternal fitness of things," without any further explanation. Other phrases he loved were "Dona nobis pacem" and "often the truth is just behind the door." These and many other lovable idiosyncrasies will never be fully explained to Fiona and younger brother Finn, because as Declan drives to help one of his psychiatric patients, a child races after a ball that has rolled into the street. Declan swerves but is struck by a truck and killed instantly, off the page and in the first chapter. As the O'Brien family struggles with grief and anger, help comes in two unusual ways. First, Thomas, one of Declan's patients, calls Fiona each Monday for two minutes only and shares insights about her father. Secondly, neighbor and classmate Luke invites Fiona and Finn to go with him to a local animal rescue shelter to read to abandoned dogs. With her customary precise, spare language, infused with emotional intelligence, MacLachlan takes readers from shocked grief to a way to live again, fundamental truths dropped carefully and delicately for young readers to comprehend in their own time.Simple words make a flawless story about resilience, hope, healing, and the eternal fitness of things. (Fiction. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 27, 2018
Key relationships in her own life inspired this characteristically taut and resonant novel by Newbery Medalist MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain and Tall). Life as Fiona has known and loved it comes to a screeching halt over runny eggs one morning when Fiona’s psychologist father—her guiding light, singer of “Dona Nobis Pacem” and player of driveway basketball—dies in a car accident after swerving to avoid hitting a child. Since her overwhelmed mother has been pursuing a degree, it falls to Fiona to keep her suddenly withdrawn younger brother, Finn (and herself), afloat over the summer. She receives rock-solid help from Luke, a remarkably intuitive neighbor; Emma, the rescue dog to whom Finn reads and sings at the local shelter; and one of her father’s former patients, who pays the doctor’s kindness forward by calling Fiona for two minutes each week and passing on her dad’s indelible sayings (“Let the whole thing float down the river on a little boat”). MacLachlan masterfully mingles core themes in this slim volume: the power of words and song, memories and family, the mutually redemptive human-canine bond, and “the eternal fitness of things.” Ages 8–12. Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content.

Narrator Imani Parks brings a gentle and compassionate voice to the tender story of recovery following the sudden death of Fiona's dad. How can she; her younger brother, Finn; and their mother recover? It takes a village--in this case, the patients of the late Declan; neighbors, each touched by the words that Declan shared with them; and the staff and dogs at the local animal shelter. Parks's narration is even and quiet. Her voice lifts with Fiona's growing understanding of the accident and the impact her father had on people and alternately brightens and falls in sync with Finn's changing emotions. When the words and actions take one's breath away, Parks's voice quietly fades, and she elongates the pauses between events, heightening their impact. Listeners have much to consider in this listening experience. A.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 1, 2018
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* Newbery-medalist MacLachlan is known for writing heart-tugging stories in spare style, as she did in Sarah, Plain and Tall? (1985). And that's what she does here as readers meet Fiona and Finn and, briefly, their psychologist father. But before the first chapter ends, Declan O'Brien is dead, hit by a truck as he swerved to avoid a toddler in the street. The family attempts to right itself, with Mrs. O'Brien continuing her course work and Fiona trying to fill in. But Finn is struggling. Thomas, a patient of Dr. O'Brien, asks if he can call Fiona for 10 minutes each week and tell her something about her father. It's Thomas who suggests Finn find someone or something to help, and it's next-door neighbor Luke who takes them to volunteer at the animal shelter. Finn's special charge is Emily, a dog whose owner has died. He takes it upon himself to figure out what Emily needs and where she belongs, and in saving Emily, he begins to save himself. None of these children seem much like real kids. In word or deed, all display wisdom far beyond their years, and Dr. O'Brien is perfection personified. Yet there's nothing cloying here, nor does this purity affect the story's emotion or the way it connects to readers. Instead, it testifies to the resilience of life. Deeply moving and uplifting in unexpected ways.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)