Synopses & Reviews
We sat at the kitchen table, across from each other. In the same spots we sat for dinner up till a month ago. The shadows on the table looked like prison bars again. This time it was Star being caged. Star, who thought leaving made her free. That life would be all hunky-dory shampooing heads and sweeping floors while Mama got slapped around-far enough away so she wouldn't have to hear the screams. That's when I knew for sure-I couldn't leave Mama. And Star couldn't make me any more than I could make her stay.
A painfully beautiful novel that exposes the haunting world of spousal abuse
Blue's family is coming apart at the seams. After Pa drowned in the river, Mama up and married Jinx, whom Blue and Star know is big trouble. And now Star has run away, leaving Blue behind. It was hard enough to watch Mama get knocked around when Jinx was in one of his "moods," but now, with Star gone, Jinx has spun out of control. It's up to Blue to find Star and get help for Mama, to piece the family back together again. But Blue is running out of time.
With biting realism and poignancy, this compelling young-adult novel explores Blue's struggle to protect her family and stand up against what she knows is wrong.
Review
"A sensitive and realistic coming-of-age story about personal loss, love, abuse and complex family relationships." --
School Library Journal "Kawnsey's debut novel sensitively and perceptively takes a familiar YA theme and gives it heart." --Publishers Weekly
"[T]houghtful and affecting."--Kirkus Reviews
"This plot-driven novel is a fast read for middle and junior high girls." --Voice of Youth Advocates
"[T]he book doesn't shirk from the fact that the capacity for uncontrolled rage lies within us all. . . .readers will nonetheless relate to the compelling account of a girl trying to fight her family's destruction from within." --Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
About the Author
Michelle D. Kwasney has worked as an elementary art educator for close to twenty years. The setting details in
Baby Blue were inspired by Ms. Kwasney's vivid memories of her childhood home on the banks of the Chemung River in upstate New York. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her partner and their nineteen-year-old cat, Samantha. This is her first novel for young adults.