By turns harrowing and heartbreaking, this middle-grade novel tells a story of a family of nine kids and one very dark secret.
Fifth grader Annie is just like every other girl in her small suburban town. Except she’s starting to realize that she isn’t. Annie is the youngest of nine children. Instead of being condemned to the bottom of the pecking order, she wants to carve out place for herself in the world. But it’s hard to find your destiny when the only thing you’re good at is being cheerful. Annie is learning that it’s difficult to be Annie, period, and not just because her clothes are worn-out hand-me-downs, and she suffers from a crippling case of dyslexia, but also because there are secrets in her life no one in her family is willing to face.
In Snow Lane, Josie Angelini presents a story about a resilient girl who, in spite of many hardships, can still find light in the darkest of places.
★★★☆☆
Annie is the youngest of nine children -- 8 girls, 1 boy -- growing up in the 1980s. Annie's Irish-Italian family leans towards various kinds of brilliance that often leave her feeling distinctly in a space of "less than." Her father is a chemist, math teacher, and part-time farmer, while sister Miriam is a math genius who, at the age of 19, has already been attending college for three years. Dyslexic, Annie is often treated as sort of an afterthought by her mother. Several of the sisters can be quite mean to her as well, but Annie has good & patient friendships with sisters Nora, Gina, and Miriam (who practically raised Annie as her own). The sisters are also there to provide a little tough love from time to time.
It's a complicated dynamic in this household, and not just by academic standards. The story makes several nods to a Catholic upbringing for the children, examples being "10 Hail Marys" for Annie whenever she curses, or how scars from a knife accident remind her of stigmata. Annie's father tends to baby her a lot and much of the outside world tends to act as if she is mentally challenged, even though her school places her in ACT ("Academically Creative & Talented) --- during my school days we just called it the "Gifted Program". There are also brief references to child abuse situations, as well as one of Annie's sisters dating an abusive man with a hot temper. Near the end of the story Annie also throws out the fact that she's been living in a hoarder's house this whole time. And it's the year of the Challenger Disaster...so yeah, a lot of stressors in this young one's life.
*Sidenote on that: there's a scene in the book that describes Annie being given puzzle / memory tests that were near identical to the ones given to me prior to being placed in my school's Gifted Program...so that was fun to see!
The presentation of Snow Lane features a slight "stream of consciousness" style (in a very kid-like way). It can be problematic at times, because I was left feeling too distanced from this family. Lots of talking, but I didn't come away feeling like I knew any of these characters all that well.
The tone alternates between some light humor --- Annie's confusion over the term "Irish Twins", as her parents call her siblings JP (John Paul) and Gina --- and some heavier moments such as discussions with or about Annie's mom that also reveal some possible disappointments the mother has in how her own life turned out.
She's not trying to be mean. I know it seems like she is, but Mom is always spread thin. It's like nothing she does is what she wants to do, and everything you add to that, even if it's just talking, could be the last straw for her. It's not her fault. She didn't choose me any more than I chose her. Miri told me. She said Mom held it together before she had Bridget, and then after, she couldn't stop crying. Then she just gave up on all of us and lost it. If she could have stopped after JP, I think everything would have been okay. Everyone says Mom and Dad should have stopped after a boy. I know that means that I wouldn't have been born, but that doesn't bother me. It's not like I'd know the difference.
(*I come from an largely Irish family myself, and I grew up hearing the jokes about two of my mom's eight siblings being "Irish Twins").
Oh, and there are also a number of Star Wars references in this little book. 👍
Being dyslexic myself, I'm always appreciative of any book that encourages conversation on the topic, but I didn't always love how the condition was described here. Annie's dyslexia affects her ability to dress herself? She puts everything on backwards and then has to correct herself? What??! I don't know if I'm just lucky, but I never once had it affect how well I could clothe my body. Still, I recognized a similar appreciation for number patterns between Annie and myself, so that was cool (though I can't be sure whether to attribute that to my dyslexia or OCD lol).
You'd think since I like counting so much I'd be great at math, but I'm not. It's the shape of the numbers that I like to think about. How they fit together. It's making a rule like, I'm going to add the numbers on a license plate as it flashes past. If the numbers add up to a multiple of, say, three, five, or seven, then that's the rule today. I look at another license plate as it flashes by and add the numbers on it. If they don't add up to a multiple of five, I have to keep adding new sets of license plate sums until I get a sum that is divisible by five. Then I start over. Today it was multiples of three, which also happens to be my favorite.
I also appreciate how this book in general addresses the point that different students have different methods for absorbing information and how that should be better appreciated within today's education system. The "one size fits all" format can be so stressful, and ultimately detrimental, to otherwise brilliant students who maybe just need a slightly altered approach to teaching certain subjects.
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