Isabel and the Miracle BabyAges: 8 and up Pages: 144 List Price: $15.95 Cover: Hardcover Published: 9/1/2007 ISBN: 1-932425-44-6 ISBN-13: 978-1-932425-44-4 |
It's been four months, but Isabel still hates her baby sister Rebekah, who gets all the attention and all the love. Isabel is sick of being neglected and has decided she's just not going to take it anymore. She talks back and disobeys her mother. She is influenced more and more by her best friend Tonya, an undisciplined child who lives down the street. Despite Isabel's mother's demand that Isabel not play with Tonya anymore, Isabel is determined to see her. Isabel's mother hosts a group of women who are former or current cancer patients. Isabel hates the “sick ladies” and is terrified that her own mother will become sick and lose all her hair again. A woman named Linda and her son Benjamin join the group. Isabel resents being forced to play with the skinny, awkward boy. She's mean to Ben and is even more upset when her mother informs her that Ben will be starting in her class soon and that Isabel should show him the ropes. Meanwhile, things aren't going well at school. Isabel has just started to be accepted by the “pink-and-purple girls,” the rich girls who live in houses with big lawns and swimming pools in their backyards. But now Ben is in the picture, and the rich girls call him her boyfriend. Isabel picks a fight with Alicia, the leader of the pink-and-purple girls. In the principal's office Ben sticks up for Isabel, and Isabel begins to realize the value of a friend who has been through things she has been through. Mama trusts Isabel to watch Rebekah while she showers. Isabel is rough with the baby, taking out her anger on her little sister. When she yanks her fingers away from her little sister's hand, Rebekah falls backward and hits her head on her rattle. Isabel sees the consequences of her careless actions and regrets the way she has been acting. She finally admits to Mama that she doesn't feel like anyone loves her anymore, and Mama resolves to spend more time alone with Isabel, recognizing that Isabel may be a big girl but still is one who needs her mother's attention. Reviews
"With sensitivity, grace, and a rascally sense of humor, Emily Smith Pearce creates a moving portrait of a young girl coping with hard changes. I cheered and laughed and cried as Isabel confronted her fears about her mother’s cancer and the changes in the family dynamics caused by the addition of the ‘miracle’ baby, not to mention her navigation of the social cliques at school. But most of all, I yearned for Isabel to find the truth—the truth that was buried deep in her heart: she was loved." "This story . . . perfectly captures her fierce desire to be independent and to disobey her mother’s rules while still wanting to be held and cuddled like her new sister. Isabel is a real girl." |
"The tantrum-prone protagonist of this multi-layered debut novel seems a smidge spoiled at first glance, but underneath eight-year-old Isabel's fits-and-starts temper lies a very ordinary need for attention. [T]he novel . . . becomes more noteworthy for Pearce's graceful weaving of a larger and more difficult subject into the narrative: Isabel's mother has had cancer . . . Pearce stays true to Isabel's young perspective even as she conveys the character's complicated discoveries about growing up."