True Colors

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True Colors

Book Information

Category
Realistic/Contemporary Fiction
Reader Personality Type
Publisher
Knopf Books for Young Readers November 2012
Curriculum
Social Emotional Learning

 “Don’t forget your family, they are what becomes you” -- Joanne Rand, “Family History” “Hannah and I covered the tomato and cucumber plants. As we worked, I saw Cat watching us. “’She’ll be cold tonight,’ I said. ‘Maybe I could make her some sort of bed.’ “’She’ll be warm enough in the barn,’ Hannah said, but when she saw me biting my lip the way I always do when I’m worried, she smiled. “’I’m sure you can find some old thing in my closet that she can sleep on, ’ she said. “Before I left for Nadine’s, I rummaged around until I found just what I wanted, a small patchwork quilt, blue with little white daisies printed on it. It was torn, and frayed at the edges, but I didn’t think Cat would mind. “Hannah’s mouth formed a little O when I showed it to her. “’I won’t use it if you don’t want me to,’ I said. “’No, it’s not that,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s just, well, that’s the quilt you were wrapped in when I found you.’”

   Even though the story is set but a few years before I was born, the fact that TRUE COLORS is set on a modest farm in small-town Vermont accentuates the feeling of our being immersed in a time and place long forgotten. This tale of a young foundling girl’s coming of age is all about finding family, nurturing friendships, cherishing story, and loving language. Reading it just a couple of days after once again visiting the sanctuary of my childhood – my grandparent’s home that was sold four decades ago after their passing – heightens the nostalgia I feel through this read and impresses upon me the value for children to learn through story how it is essential to embrace our precious family ties as we develop our autonomy.  

  Blue was a newborn baby who had been left wrapped in that old patchwork quilt and plopped into the old “copper kettle that Hannah Spooner grew her marigolds in.” This had taken place on the same day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The elderly Hannah, who has always been there for everyone in the community, took Blue in, and raised her as her own.

   Now, in 1952, Blue has grown to be an industrious young girl who spends her spare time delivering the tasty home baked goods that Hannah sells to the townsfolk. The community, busily preparing for its sesquicentennial celebration, is steeped in old town stories. And Blue, who is now itching to learn about her own origins, will discover this to be a summer of significant changes and revelations. Her life-long summer friend Nadine, a year older, has done some serious growing over the past year and the two friends are repeatedly at odds as they navigate the new currents in their lives. Blue is also developing a sense of fairness that is heightened by her witnessing the misbehavior of the local young hooligans – the Wright brothers; the ill-treatment bestowed upon Raleigh True, a town resident who was left brain-damaged by some sort of accident that happened before Blue’s time; and the appearance of a cat that has been abandoned near Hannah’s farm.

   “’How could someone just leave her?’ I asked. It was the same question I wanted to ask the woman who’d left me in Hannah’s kettle ten and a half years ago.

   “’Some folks don’t think of anything but themselves,’ Hannah said. ‘ There’s lots of glundies in the world.’

   “Glundie is another word for ‘fool.’ So are gowk, coof, dobbie, and tattie. Tattie also means ‘potatoes,’ and we had ‘tatties and neeps’ many nights for supper. Neeps are turnips. I didn’t care for turnips, and neither did Nadine, but she loved saying ‘tatties and neeps.’ Nadine loved Hannah’ s Scottish words (‘She’s even better than “It pays to Increase Your Word Power,”’ Nadine said), and she’d giggle every morning when, instead of calling us ‘lazy-bones,’ Hannah would holler up the stairs, ‘Up, you two snoofmadrunes!’ I liked Scottish words, too. Maybe it was because I didn’t have to spell them.”

   As you can see, this story is also sure to help develop some young logophiles as it reveals the precious nature of family and friendship.  242 pages  Ages 8-12

Recommended by: Richie Partington

See more of his recommendations at: Richie's Picks _https://richiespicks.com

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