Blue
Gr. 4-7. Thirteen-year-old Ann Fay always wanted to be just like her father, but when he gives her a pair of overalls before going off to fight Hitler, her feelings are mixed: "Wearing britches so I could take the place of my daddy wasn't the same as wearing them so I could climb trees." [...] Hostetter weaves her own North Carolina community's history into heartfelt fiction, marked by an agreeable, vernacular narrative and unobtrusive symbolism surrounding the color blue--the hue of both Ann Fay's overalls and the pesky wisteria vine that, like grown-up responsibility made palpable, threatens to overtake her victory garden. An incongruous structural rift mars the novel's latter half, set in the polio hospital, where the heart-tugging family drama gives way to a programmatic story line about an obstacle-laden friendship between Ann Fay and an African American patient. Still, the intriguing history of the illness and the powerful first-person voice will propel readers through to the novel's deeply satisfying conclusion.Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved