Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen

by Glen Huser

Overview

At fifteen, Tamara has survived the foster-care system through brains, will and attitude. Now there's high school to get through, along with her teacher's latest community project -- volunteering at the local seniors' home. Tamara doubts she can endure either the residents or the smells.

Then she's assigned to Jean Barclay, a cranky, wealthy and frail former schoolteacher. As the two size one another up, they realize each is the key to achieving their own very different goals. Miss Barclay wants to attend an opera in Seattle -- a trip doctors insist she's too weak to undertake. Tamara wants to enroll in modeling school in Vancouver -- an expense she can't begin to afford. They plan the road trip of a lifetime -- but can these two bossy, manipulative women keep from throttling each other before their goals are realized?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554980611
Publisher:	Groundwood Books Ltd
Publication date:	07/31/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Lexile:	730L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 15 Years

About the Author

Glen Huser’s award-winning novels include Stitches (winner of the Governor General’s Award), Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen (nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award and the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize) and Touch of the Clown (shortlisted for the Mr. Christie’s Book Award). Visit Glen Huser's website: http://glenhuser.com/

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7 Up
Tamara, a not-quite-15-year-old foster kid, describes with cynicism her deposit with yet another family. She's anorexic, she's a liar and truant, and she defines herself as a future model. Jean Barclay is a crotchety 89-year-old rest-home resident with a bum hip and a bourbon dependency. Brought together for a school project, each one realizes that the other has something she needs: Tamara can drive Jean to Seattle to see a series of beloved operas, and Jean can pay for a modeling course for Tamara in Vancouver. In alternating first-person narratives, they relate their plan to drive cross country-one to bring closure to a life, and the other to open a door. References to Dickens's Great Expectations and Wagner's Ring Cycle frame the text with some success, but Huser's prose is clunky, and his pacing is labored. The narrative voices are neither distinct from one another nor convincing. Most disappointing is the characters' lack of depth and growth. Both have serious problems (alcoholism, eating disorders) that are oddly made light of. Martha Brooks's True Confessions of a Heartless Girl (Farrar, 2003) and Patricia Reilly Giff's Pictures of Hollis Woods (Random, 2002) are more compelling explorations of the intersection of young and old at differing stages of life's journey.
—Riva PollardCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

...[Huser]'s portrait of two outsiders is an affecting and involving one...The road trip is entertaining, and revelatory, and Huser realistically gives his heroines only some of what they wish for.

Horn Book

Both characters emerge as strongly sympathetic rebels; readers will applaud their outlaw partnership and be glad that Tamara, at least, receives forgiveness and a fresh start.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

This is a super cross-generations book!...This is a well-done story with strong characters who will appeal to middle school readers.

Library Media Connection