  | When the stammer came to stay Author: O'Farrell, Maggie | |
| Price: $14.25 | ||
Summary:
Bea and Min are sisters who are so unlike each other in so many ways, but their bond strengthens when Min struggles with a stammer.
| Illustrator: | Terrazzini, Daniela Jaglenka |
Reviews:
Booklist (12/01/24)
Full Text Reviews:
Other - 09/23/2024 At the start of this personal-feeling work from previous collaborators O’Farrell and Terrazzini (Where Snow Angels Go), disorderly, chatty Min lives with measured, tidy sister Bea in the attic of a home also occupied by their parents and three lodgers. Storybook-style ink and watercolor artwork shows Bea in neat ruffles and Min with trousers and a scraped shin. But everything changes one night during a household game, when Min finds that "her tongue seemed to be suddenly locked. Instead, the only sound she could make was S-S-S-s-s-s-." Similar experiences continue the next day at breakfast, en route to school, and at lunch. Later, in the mirror, she sees a smoke-like shape hovering above her, "seizing the words as they rose to her lips." Bea, suggesting that the occurrence is a stammer, identifies the shape as a "dybbuk, an undesirable spirit which takes up residence with a person, causing them great difficulties." A discussion of symbiosis helps Min embrace the dybbuk ("Try to think of your stammer as a friend.... Remember what it gives you") in this relational portrait. Protagonists are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 5-8. (Dec.) - Copyright 2024
Other - 09/23/2024 At the start of this personal-feeling work from previous collaborators O’Farrell and Terrazzini (Where Snow Angels Go), disorderly, chatty Min lives with measured, tidy sister Bea in the attic of a home also occupied by their parents and three lodgers. Storybook-style ink and watercolor artwork shows Bea in neat ruffles and Min with trousers and a scraped shin. But everything changes one night during a household game, when Min finds that "her tongue seemed to be suddenly locked. Instead, the only sound she could make was S-S-S-s-s-s-." Similar experiences continue the next day at breakfast, en route to school, and at lunch. Later, in the mirror, she sees a smoke-like shape hovering above her, "seizing the words as they rose to her lips." Bea, suggesting that the occurrence is a stammer, identifies the shape as a "dybbuk, an undesirable spirit which takes up residence with a person, causing them great difficulties." A discussion of symbiosis helps Min embrace the dybbuk ("Try to think of your stammer as a friend.... Remember what it gives you") in this relational portrait. Protagonists are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 5-8. (Dec.) - Copyright 2024
Booklist - 12/01/2024 Sisters Bea and Min share an attic bedroom, where Bea is excessively tidy and Min likes to chat. One day, Min begins stammering, and she spies an oyster-gray shape around her shoulders that seems to suck words right out of her mouth. Min is understandably distraught, and Bea is solicitous but unable to solve the problem. Eventually a friend suggests that Min concentrate on the positives her new condition affords. O'Farrell's thoughtful story empathetically addresses a common childhood condition, offering a realistic (if not completely upbeat) ending. Terrazzini's ink-and-watercolor illustrations suggest a mid-twentieth-century urban setting (possibly the UK) and colorfully depict the story's architecture, people, and dress. Particularly intriguing is the sideways spread with a cutaway view of the girls' six-story house. The stammer cloud always appears in gray, swirling around the page filled with the letters that form Min's words. While stammer is more often termed stutter in North America, and contemporary prognoses are often more positive than Min's, this is an engaging story of sisterly support and acceptance. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
