SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Fusenews
  • Reviews
  • Librarian Previews
  • Best Books
    • Top 100
    • Best Books of 2022
    • Best Books of 2021
    • Best Books of 2020
    • Best Books of 2019
    • Best Books of 2018
    • Best Books of 2017
    • Best Books of 2016
    • Best Books of 2015
    • Best Books of 2014
    • Best Books of 2013
  • Fuse 8 n’ Kate
  • Videos
  • Press Release Fun

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: Reaching for Sun

June 12, 2007 by Betsy Bird   3 comments


Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. Bloomsb
ury. $14.95.

Try this sometime. Read a book, put it down, and then wait a couple months. Let the distinct memories of the title ebb away. Your first impressions are tamed. Your fervor (of either the positive or negative variety) softens a bit. This method of reviewing is a way of separating the wheat from the chaff. If a book sticks with you for a certain period of time, it must be worth remembering. "Reaching for Sun" is worth remembering. A very

gentle, warm, and welcoming book it feels like nothing so much as a gently scented bath. First time novelist Tracie Vaughn Zimmer tries her hand on a preliminary verse novel technique and, for the most part, pulls it off with aplomb. A title of the sweeter variety.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Josie loves so much. The woods behind her home. Her Gran and her mother. Nature itself. What she doesn’t love is having to attend special education classes for her cerebral palsy. She’s also not too fond of the fact that she doesn’t have a real friend to hang out with. That is, before she meets Jordan. The only son of a busy businessman, Jordan sees the extraordinary that resides within Josie. Yet before too long Josie’s life gets extremely difficult. Her mother’s making her attend classes at the clinic that she simply does not want to attend. She fights with Jordan and she starts skipping clinic only to have her Gran collapse ill at home. Life can be cruel and life can be beautiful and Josie sees equal parts of either side.

The verse novel still has to justify its own existence with every book that uses its style. When you pick up a work of fiction written in verse you have to ask yourself, "Would this title be stronger or weaker if it were just straight prose?" Zimmer’s advantage is that Josie lives a life that’s best suited for poetry. The very world around her sings. To hear her say, "I’m the wisteria vine growing up the arbor of this odd family, reaching for sun," would sound trite or forced if the book weren’t verse. Instead, it’s just lovely. This isn’t a case where the author wrote some sentences and then randomly chopped them up into lines. It’s a book that flows to its own internal rhythm.

This isn’t Zimmer’s first book either, you know. She wrote a poetry title called, Sketches From a Spy Tree so her poetry credentials are well and truly in order. As for those amongst you curious as to whether or not Josie’s cerebral palsy is treated with the proper amount of attention, Ms. Zimmer also happened to teach high school students with autism and middle school children with developmental and learning disabilities (as this title’s bookflap explains). I, personally, have never had any contact with anyone with cerebral palsy, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge. Still, if you wanted to find books on a disability that was treated with the utmost respect, I cannot see that Zimmer does anything but impress.

It doesn’t hurt things any that the language in "Reaching for Sun" is distinctly pleasurable too. The "poem" called "holiday buffet", for example, shows off the author’s low key style. "On Christmas Eve / we buy up the gala apples / with thumbprint bruises, / oranges, scaly and puckered, / even bananas spotted like / Granny’s hands." And when Josie meets Jordan for the first time the books says that her voice is like "new chalk". Later, Gran defends the raucous brightly colored energy of her home and says that though she sold most of her land she didn’t sell the family’s imagination. Be that as it may, Josie wonders of that imagination, "if we could bleach it – just a bit." And when Jordan comes out wearing his swim trunks, "his shoulders look like the nub / of new growth on a tree. / In my swimsuit I feel exposed – / a seedling in a late frost." Good stuff.

It has a first book feel to it, of course. That’s not necessarily a criticism. It’s just that sometimes you read a book and it offers you hints of greater things to come. "Reaching for Sun" does that. It’s not a flashy book. It won’t parade itself about demanding attention and respect. But the emotions in this title are raw, the characters real, and the situations interesting. A fine example of the verse novel and bound to be a book report favorite.

Notes on the Cover:
Beautiful, sure, but aren’t we cheating a little bit here, Bloomsbury?  It’s a striking image and I bet a whole heckuva lot of girls will clamor to pick it up.  That said, Josie has a couple physical defects that this picture is gently obscuring.  One of her shoulders, for example, is particularly high.  Note that the shoulder in this picture is nearly cut out of the shot.  Clever but a little sad.  You can’t put a physically disabled girl on the cover of her own book?  Guess not.

Other Blog Reviews By: Mother Reader, Wordy Girls, OMS Book Blog, and BCCLS Mock Awards.
See Also: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s Blog Tour

Filed under: Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

March 2023

Review of the Day - Trees: Haiku from Roots to Leaves by Sally M. Walker, ill. Angela McKay

by Betsy Bird

March 2023

Review of the Day: Hands by Torrey Maldonado

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: Afterward, Everything Was Different by Rafael Yockteng, ill. Jairo Buitrago

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself created by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri, ill. Daniel Miyares

by Betsy Bird

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

One Star Review, Guess Who? (#184)

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Review of the Day – Trees: Haiku from Roots to Leaves by Sally M. Walker, ill. Angela McKay

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Review: Nat the Cat Takes a Nap

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Here Be Monsters: On Horror, Catharsis, and Uneasy Truces with Yourself, a guest post by author Rebecca Mahoney

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Newbery Medalist Amina Luqman-Dawson visits The Yarn

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Supernatural Page-Turners for 'Lockwood & Co.' Fans | Read-Alikes

Principal: “Don’t Suggest Books” | Scales on Censorship

A Brief History of Zines

Ask Jason Reynolds Anything!

Truth Teller, A. S. King | The Year in SLJ Covers

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hope V. says

    June 13, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    I haven’t read the book yet but it sounds like one of its themes is Josie’s wish to be independent of the CP label. Perhaps Bloomsbury is just ahead of the curve by assigning a cover which does not make her handicap the main focus? I agree that a girl with a physical disability can (of course!) be as attractive as someone without obvious disability…but I don’t think that this cover is trying to obscure her disability. I think they’re inviting readers to see past it.

  2. Fuse #8 says

    June 14, 2007 at 4:32 am

    Hm. Maybe you’re right. And it is, as I say, quite the lovely cover.

  3. Alyssa says

    May 8, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    We had to do an English project for 10th grade English, we got to choose any book we wanted. I looked at the cover and immediately picked this book. I didn’t even glance at others. The title and picture on the cover alone made it intriguing. This book was very well written and I like how it was in poem verse rather than a typical chapter book.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • External Links

    • A Fuse #8 Production Reviews
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023