From: KATIE ODELL JONES <kmadison>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 09:19:27 -0700 (MST)

I am so happy we will have the chance to discuss The Cuckoo's Child by Suzanne Freeman this month. I want to jump right in by looking at the use of rituals in this work. I have been struck several times in recent children's literature by children who participate in rituals as protective devices. I saw that in Marie in Kevin Heneke's Protecting Marie when she used her own defense mechanisms to protect herse from a father she could not understand. Mia, in The Cuckoo's Child, is similar in that she bargains with herself to try and control what she really has no control over. Over and over we see Mia's love for conformity: the Girl Scouts, her need for a religion, the Apple Pie America she misses so. To see the same things everyday is a comfort for her in the same way it was stiffling for her mother. But Mia's rituals also seem to hurt her as well. Her sleep is interupted by her kitchen routine. It is amusing to think of her kssing the Mr. Clean bottle, but terribly sad as well. She truly believes she must arrange her world and enact is order to regain her parents. I was most struck by the scene in which she "cleanses" herself with boiling water after allowing herself a cookie. Sinclair may be right in her assessment of Mia as a saint. f nothing else, Mia's abilty to deny herself repeatedly would steer her towards the Catholic faith I gw up wi

What do others of you make of her rituals? What about the scene when Mia tells herself that "the more you wanted something, the more likely it was that you wouldhave to give it up." (page 111). I feel it is Mia's love of things in their place, including her parents of rituals and traditions that turns into both her insecurity and defense mechanism when faced with what children fear the most:being abandoned.

Kate O'Dell Madison Youth Services Librarian Tempe Public Library Tempe, AZ
Received on Tue 03 Sep 1996 11:19:27 AM CDT