Place To Call Home, A by Jackie French Koller (1995-10-01)
Categories: Books, Teen & Young Adult, Literature & Fiction



Grade level: 7 - 9
Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.75 inches
Reading age: 11 years and up
ISBN-13: 978-0689800245
Language: English
ISBN-10: 068980024X
Publisher: Atheneum
Print length: 208 pages
Publication date: October 1, 1995
subtitle: Hardcover – October 1, 1995
author: Jackie French Koller
review: Editorial Reviews From School Library Journal Grade 6-10?Mama's gone again, and it's hardly a surprise to 15-year-old Anna. The surprise comes later, when Mama doesn't come back, and Anna discovers her old yellow car submerged in the lake. Anna's desperate struggle to make a home for her two younger siblings leads her to Mississippi to trace her mother's escape route from her abused childhood and to seek her family and milieu. Anna, the black child of a white mother and unknown father, loves her two white siblings passionately, though she can't forget she's different. Poverty and sickness lead the young woman to abandon her fight to keep the household together and to turn to the social service agency that has scattered them before. This eloquent depiction of impoverishment and courage is set in the contemporary hills of Connecticut, where there are plenty of contrasts: destitution among wealth; grief hiding below apparent equanimity; bigotry within families; tenacity against all odds. Anna tells the story in the first person with warmth and immediacy. Among the cast of less credible characters are despicable Aunt Roe McCallum, who literally furnishes her home with foster children; and Nate Leon, Anna's white sweetheart and champion, who appears every time a rescue is needed. Nonetheless, A Place to Call Home is a fast-paced, compelling read, with a memorable and feisty heroine and satisfying social values. It will sit easily on the shelf next to Virginia Euwer Wolff's Make Lemonade (Holt, 1993).?Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Gr. 7^-10. Fifteen-year-old biracial Anna tries to care for her five-year-old sister and infant brother when her alcoholic mother disappears yet again. Anna discovers her mother's car in a nearby lake--evidence of her suicide. After hiding in a cabin in the woods and then being placed with an unloving foster family, Anna, in desperation, travels to her mother's hometown in Mississippi, hoping to find family and a home. Instead, she learns of the horrors of her mother's past and meets white grandparents who don't want her. In spite of the grimness and apparent hopelessness of Anna's situation, she finds help, love, friendship, and a home. Koller portrays a young woman of strength and character, whose search for love and roots is at the core of a sensitive and finely written novel that shows the tragic and all-too-common results of sexual abuse and rejection from one's family. Merri Monks