Told in spare, evocative verse, The Name She Gave Me is a love letter to anyone finding their way home. Betty Culley’s characters have worked their way into my heart and will stay with me long after finishing their beautiful story.” — Joy McCullough, New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-longlisted author of Blood Water Paint
" Wistful verse highlights small but telling moments throughout Rynn’s search... The author’s lived history with foster care and adoption gives the narrative nuance and authority. Emotionally complex and empathetic characters and a faithfully depicted rural landscape form an exemplary backdrop for this contemplative novel." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
" Poetic verse is deployed with a poignant beauty... The journey for Rynn here is as much about finding her birth family as it is about finally realizing she is loveable and loved by so many people. A bittersweet conclusion brings Rynn as much closure as she’s going to get with both her mothers, but readers will be grateful to see her looking toward a future of self-discovery now that the past has been put to rest." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
" Emotions run high in this novel-in-verse. [Culley] portrays these families in nuanced ways as connections are forged. Melodic verse is perfect for the poignant moments that cultivate both compassion and hope." — School Library Journal
" Variously scarred by past addiction, poverty, bad health, and bad luck, the well-drawn characters... largely prove resilient and kind. An adoptee herself, Culley writes with insight and nuance about biological families and those formed in other ways. The direct, straightforward poems effectively flesh out the characterization and are accessible to reluctant readers. Compassionate and compelling." — Kirkus Reviews
"The verse format really worked for the kind of straightforward way Rynn tells her story. Her story has the many layers that so many adoption stories have: unknown histories and people, feelings of loose ends and loss, sudden discoveries of family, complicated feelings, and new connections. The people she is surrounded by are so vividly drawn and unique. Rynn is so vulnerable, so clearly aching to fill what she’s always felt as holes in her life. This compassionate and quiet story is a beautiful and poignant look at family, belonging, and self-discovery." — Teen Librarian Toolbox
Praise for Three Things I Know Are True : "Culley’s compelling free-verse poems accumulate into a poignant story of a family that was already struggling and then transformed into something unrecognizable. Liv’s narration is touching, honest, and perceptive. A story of love and resilience as much as loss and grief." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
"Introspective and inquisitive Liv's free-verse narration vividly explores the rift between her family and Clay's; memories of her late father; and the difficulty of surviving in her economically depressed small town. Above all, her spare, blunt lines convey her love for Jonah; her exhaustion and loneliness as her friends and overworked, overwhelmed mother grow distant; and the nuances of guilt and forgiveness. Liv's struggle with the "little animal / inside" her that yearns for attention even as she acknowledges that Jonah "needs everything" is piercingly realistic. A poignant, humanizing exploration of a sadly timely issue." — Kirkus Reviews
"An emotional journey that follows a life-altering tragedy. Culley weaves carefully chosen details into a slowly forming tapestry. A tale that is both harrowing in subject matter and elegant in execution." — ALA Booklist
"A heartbreaking story about a topic that is too prevalent in today’s society." — School Library Journal
?"Eloquent narrative verse. Culley deftly captures the community’s nuanced responses and the heartbreak both families navigate as this devastating tragedy becomes a political battleground." — Publishers Weekly
★ 05/16/2022
Culley’s (Three Things I Know Are True ) evocative verse centers 16-year-old adoptee Rynn searching for answers about her past. Rynn lives on a Maine garlic farm with her soft-spoken Jewish father and her mercurial mother, whose personal traumas affect her relationship with Rynn. Though Rynn is content hanging out with her best friend or babysitting her toddler neighbor, she longs to learn about her birth family. But without her adoptive mother’s consent, she must wait until she turns 18 to access her official birth records. With encouragement from friends, Rynn uses one of the few clues she has—her atypical birth name, Scheherazade—to unearth her past on her own. Wistful verse highlights small but telling moments throughout Rynn’s search, from connecting with her biological half sister to growing increasingly distant from her adoptive family while seeking the love and acceptance she desperately needs elsewhere. The author’s lived history with foster care and adoption gives the narrative nuance and authority. Emotionally complex and empathetic characters (most of whom cue as white) and a faithfully depicted rural landscape form an exemplary backdrop for this contemplative novel. Ages 13–up. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney Agency. (June)
Praise for Three Things I Know Are True : "Culley’s compelling free-verse poems accumulate into a poignant story of a family that was already struggling and then transformed into something unrecognizable. Liv’s narration is touching, honest, and perceptive. A story of love and resilience as much as loss and grief."
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
"An emotional journey that follows a life-altering tragedy. Culley weaves carefully chosen details into a slowly forming tapestry. A tale that is both harrowing in subject matter and elegant in execution."
Told in spare, evocative verse, The Name She Gave Me is a love letter to anyone finding their way home. Betty Culley’s characters have worked their way into my heart and will stay with me long after finishing their beautiful story.”
06/01/2022
Gr 7 Up— Her birth mother named her Scheherazade, the only thing she has from her. Renamed by her adoptive parents, Rynn finds her adoptive mother chilly and at times emotionally abusive. While her adoptive father is loving, he seems a bit obtuse when it comes to Rynn's struggles with her mom. At 16, she is not of legal age to open her adoption records, but she remembers Grammie True was into genealogy, which prompts her to dig into her birth family history online herself. When her research turns up a deceased birth mother and a living biological sister, she is heartbroken but motivated to find the sister she never knew. Emotions run high in this novel-in-verse; Rynn feels erased when she learns her birth family never knew she existed. She takes comfort in the fact that birth mother "Sherry" Scheherazade shared her own name, and that her sister Sorella's name literally means "sister." The reflective tone is apparent during Rynn's journey finding her own identity and the pieces she feels are missing. Her internal "multiverse" of adopted family/birth family/found family is introspective and evolving. Main characters in the story are white living on farmland in Maine. Culley notes that she was adopted from foster care and discovered siblings later in life. She portrays these families in nuanced ways as connections are forged. VERDICT Melodic verse is perfect for the poignant moments that cultivate both compassion and hope. Recommended for all libraries serving teens.—Lisa Krok
2022-03-16
Rynn, 16, knows her birth mother named her Scheherazade, wanted her raised on a farm, and kept her younger sister, born seven years later. Surgery cured Rynn’s cleft palate and mended the holes in her heart and back but not her aching sense of loss. Close to her gentle adoptive dad, a New York City transplant who sells his garlic at the farmers market, Rynn has stopped trying to please her unhappy adoptive mom, Leanne, whose grievances, genuine traumas (her lost pregnancies and own mother’s abandonment), and simmering resentment erupt unpredictably. Lacking Leanne’s consent, Rynn can’t access her birth records until she’s 18, but supported by friends, she finds an uncle in Arizona and Ella, her 9-year-old sister, who is in foster care nearby. Fleeing Leanne’s abusive anger, Rynn finds refuge with family friends. She opposes her parents’ efforts to adopt Ella, who has a loving bond with her foster mother. Variously scarred by past addiction, poverty, bad health, and bad luck, the well-drawn characters, mostly White, largely prove resilient and kind. An adoptee herself, Culley writes with insight and nuance about biological families and those formed in other ways. The direct, straightforward poems effectively flesh out the characterization and are accessible to reluctant readers.
Compassionate and compelling. (Verse novel. 12-18)
