swept away

"May would tell Cletus and me, if she was here right now, that it's okay to grab for something or somebody that's being swept away from you. She'd tell us to hold on tight because we're all meant to be together. We're all meant to need each other.

She'd just remind us that there's more places to be together than this one. She'd tell us we don't have to give up if this life doesn't give us everything we want. There's aways another one..." --Missing May, Cynthia Rylant

Still working on my Newbery quest, though it's slowed down with the upcoming move. When I picked up 1993 Newbery Medal winner,  Missing May, I thought, "how the heck is this book supposed to convey anything about loss--it's only 88 pages long!" But it does! Really. Somehow Rylant is able to show the deep and profound sadness of Summer and Ob after May's death (Ob and May are family members who adopted Summer); somehow through Cletus, a strange nostalgia/picture toting classmate of Summer's, Ob and Summer begin to see the world again. Even in this short novel, Rylant was able to talk about death in an honest and real way. I really appreciated that. And I wound up enjoying the novel.

Would I recommend it: Yup.

Ages:  8 and up.