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Cuckoo's Child
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From: Judy O'Malley /General Pub. 4th Floor <jomalley>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 14:47:25 EST
I appreciate greatly the thought, care, and time Ginny, K.T., and Megan have given to CCBC-net during its thirteen-month life span, but particularly the good judgment and sense of purpose they have shown in the last few weeks in encouraging participating and suggestions, while defining the scope and intention of the list. Having a clear focus while remaining fluid is, indeed, tricky, but essential, I think, in sustaining the commitment many of us feel to these discussions. In fact, it's my guess and hope that the evident receptivity to all views and input will help some of us still in semi-lurking mode to feel less reticent.
I'm paraticularly glad The Cuckoo's Child is this month's topic, as I think Suzanne Freeman did a masterful job of portraying a child under intense internal pressure to maintain some kind of hold on normalcy when her entire world seems to spinning away from her. I found the author's use of Mia's ritual acts to demonstrate her increasing desperation to control her life, increasing as the evidence grows that her parents will never return, extremely effective and poignant. Children under such intense stress do often resort to ritual in trying to make some sense for themselves out of a world that seems erratic and frightening. Mia's rituals, as Katie O'Dell noted, have a self-punishing edge which seems to express the guilt Mia feels for somehow causing her mother not to return.
Mis is not a consistently attractive character; she is angry, jealous, teetering on an edge of violence. But she is an appealingly authentic, vulnerable and resilient chld whose inner strength, at the end of the book, has been tested and honed and whom, the reader believes, will always be able to find her home within herself.
Judy O'Malley H.W. Wilson
.
Received on Tue 03 Sep 1996 02:47:25 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 14:47:25 EST
I appreciate greatly the thought, care, and time Ginny, K.T., and Megan have given to CCBC-net during its thirteen-month life span, but particularly the good judgment and sense of purpose they have shown in the last few weeks in encouraging participating and suggestions, while defining the scope and intention of the list. Having a clear focus while remaining fluid is, indeed, tricky, but essential, I think, in sustaining the commitment many of us feel to these discussions. In fact, it's my guess and hope that the evident receptivity to all views and input will help some of us still in semi-lurking mode to feel less reticent.
I'm paraticularly glad The Cuckoo's Child is this month's topic, as I think Suzanne Freeman did a masterful job of portraying a child under intense internal pressure to maintain some kind of hold on normalcy when her entire world seems to spinning away from her. I found the author's use of Mia's ritual acts to demonstrate her increasing desperation to control her life, increasing as the evidence grows that her parents will never return, extremely effective and poignant. Children under such intense stress do often resort to ritual in trying to make some sense for themselves out of a world that seems erratic and frightening. Mia's rituals, as Katie O'Dell noted, have a self-punishing edge which seems to express the guilt Mia feels for somehow causing her mother not to return.
Mis is not a consistently attractive character; she is angry, jealous, teetering on an edge of violence. But she is an appealingly authentic, vulnerable and resilient chld whose inner strength, at the end of the book, has been tested and honed and whom, the reader believes, will always be able to find her home within herself.
Judy O'Malley H.W. Wilson
.
Received on Tue 03 Sep 1996 02:47:25 PM CDT
