Sib needs to understand her mother in order to understand her father and herself. I don't even know he's there. What she means becomes evident as their journey takes place. It's easy to blame Connie for deserting her baby and Sib certainly feels that blame. The skill of Brooks' is such that we can understand and are ready for Sib's acceptance of the fact and even understanding of her mother's need at the time to do so.
Time is also a focus of the book, particularly the time of the sixties.
The drugs, the self-indulgence and the irresponsibility of that time are often dealt with and this book surely doesn't slight them, but the idealism of the time is often ignored and it is Taxi who tells us about their worth. The book could lead to a whole sixties research project in which the music, the drug culture, the communes and the violence are all examined by today's students. This is a book where the author's voice is sometimes obvious in Taxi and as such, it makes a good place to start a discussion about similar voices in other books. Copyright 1999, Carol Hurst and Rebecca Otis.