Synopses & Reviews
"On my head I got yellow hair that looks like pee and hangs down into the back pockets of my jeans. Me and my mom had identical hair. People used to say to us, You two sisters? Sometimes my mom laughed because she loved flattery like she loved chocolate. Sometimes she poked me in the back which was at her eye level and said, How could this giraffe be my sister?"
Angelica Skyler certainly wasn't a perfect mother to fourteen-year-old Thumbelina, but when she is found dead in the local duck pond, Thumbelina yearns to have her back. Captivating yet incorrigibly stupid about men, Angelica spent more time cultivating her looks and a chaotic relationship with her live-in lover, Lester, than nurturing her daughter, but those moments when she turned her attention to Thumbelina were the bursts of sunshine in a cloud-covered childhood. Six feet tall with thick glasses covering a face she doesn't even know is pretty, Thumbelina is now alone with a few Johnny Cash tapes, a guitar that belonged to the musician father she never knew, and a spirit almost as large as the odds against her.
Quickly placed with a foster family, Thumbelina bumps straight into Myrna, a feisty redhead half her size and with a baby in her stomach. Also fourteen years old and as savvy as they come, Myrna has no trouble discerning that her secretive new roommate is pregnant, too. With little money but lots of charm, the unlikely pair strike out on their own, only to run into more serious trouble and heartache than they could have ever imagined. Thumbelina's wonderfully idiosyncratic sense of humor and indefatigable courage guide her through social workers, a particularly tenacious doctor, and deadbeat dads as she struggles for a future just as she comes to terms with her past.
Laughs mingle with tears throughout this bittersweet, unforgettable story of a young girl embracing hope in the face of tragedy. Immensely talented first-time novelist Andrea Koenig has created a character whose distinctive and instantly lovable voice will hook readers from the very first page...and won't let go until the last.
About the Author
Andrea Koenig received a Fulbright award to Nothern Ireland in 1996 and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University in 1998. Thumbelina is her first novel. She lives in Syracuse, New York.