Spelldown: The Big-Time Dreams of a Small-Town Word Whiz
Starred Review.Set in a folksy South Carolina town in 1968, this heartrending and  funny debut novel deftly evokes place, time and character. Karlene, a gutsy  eighth-grader determined to win the Shirley County Spelldown, narrates in a  charming voice that exudes her love of words. Mrs. Harrison, her new Latin  teacher, brings the dead language alive, for Karlene and for readers. The woman  volunteers to be her spelling coach and warmly welcomes Karlene into her heart  and her home. As the teen spends time in their seemingly perfect household,  babysitting for the two Harrison children, Karlene envisions her teacher and  loving husband as her "pretend parents." Theirs is a different world from  Karlene's: her father's soul has become "trapped in a liquor bottle" and her  increasingly dispirited mother labors long days at the mill. In one especially  moving scene, the girl hauls a Christmas tree through the woods to her younger  twin brothers waiting at home, musing, "the way it looks around here, it's up  to me to make the holiday happen." Readers will revel in the heroine's much  heralded public victories, yet her private triumphs—among them a longed-for  first kiss from a kind older boy and her reunion with her father at a treatment  center—are even more moving and memorable. Peppering her narrative with  copious references to '60s songs (Karlene observes that a sad teacher "probably  keeps her face in a jar by the door like Eleanor Rigby"), Luddy has composed a  resonant, applause-worthy work of fiction. Ages 10-up.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.