Diamond Willow

Diamond Willow

by Helen Frost
Diamond Willow

Diamond Willow

by Helen Frost

Hardcover

$16.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Temporarily Out of Stock Online
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

There's
more to me than
most people
see.

Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants, more than anything, to mush the dogs out to her grandparents' house, by herself, with Roxy in the lead. But sometimes when it's just you, one mistake can have frightening consequences . . . And when Willow stumbles, it takes a surprising group of friends to help her make things right again.

Using diamond-shaped poems inspired by forms found in polished diamond willow sticks, Helen Frost tells the moving story of Willow and her family. Hidden messages within each diamond carry the reader further, into feelings Willow doesn't reveal even to herself.
Diamond Willow is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780374317768
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date: 04/01/2008
Series: Frances Foster Bks.
Pages: 128
Product dimensions: 6.68(w) x 9.54(h) x 0.69(d)
Lexile: 670L (what's this?)
Age Range: 10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Helen Frost is the author of several books for young people, including Hidden, Crossing Stones, The Braid, and Keesha's House, selected an Honor Book for the Michael L. Printz Award. Helen Frost was born in Brookings, South Dakota, the fifth of ten children. She recalls the summer her family moved from South Dakota to Oregon, traveling in a big trailer and camping in places like the Badlands and Yellowstone. Her father told the family stories before they went to sleep, and Helen would dream about their travels, her family, and their old house. "That's how I became a writer," she says. "I didn't know it at the time, but all those things were accumulating somewhere inside me."

As a child, she loved to travel, think, swim, sing, learn, canoe, write, argue, sew, play the piano, play softball, play with dolls, daydream, read, go fishing, and climb trees. Now, when she sits down to write, her own experiences become the details of her stories. Helen has lived in South Dakota, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Scotland, Colorado, Alaska, California, and Indiana. She currently lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with her family.

Reading Group Guide

Note: None of these questions has a "right answer." They are suggestions of things you might think about or talk over with someone else who has read Diamond Willow.

1. Do you think Willow is lonely? Is being lonely the same as being alone?

2. Is having a pet just as good as having a person-friend?

3. What does Willow discover that makes it easier for her to make new friends?

4. Have you ever experienced the death of someone who loves you? If so, do you sometimes feel like their love for you is still somewhere in the world, as expressed by the animals in Diamond Willow?

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews