The In-Between Days

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6-Despite an ending that ties loose ends up a bit too neatly, this is a warm, heartfelt story about a family struggling to cope with change. George, 11, his 5-year-old brother, James, and their father are one of the 43 families who live year-round on a sleepy island. Then Caroline, recently divorced, comes to the island for a day and rents a bicycle from their shop. When she begins to visit regularly, George worries that his father will marry her. He decides to play a meanspirited prank at Christmas that will force her away, and, to his ultimate dismay, it works. When the island is cut off from civilization by a blizzard, he understands for the first time how much he has cut himself off from admitting his loneliness since his mother's death. As the community comes together to build a traditional ice bridge to the mainland, he takes the opportunity to reach out to Caroline. The writing is descriptive and sensitive, and George is a thoroughly believable and sympathetic character. Although it's puzzling that he and his father don't talk about what's happening given their close relationship, this inconsistency won't prevent readers from finding the story to be a satisfying one of healing and resolution.Cyrisse Jaffee, formerly at Newton Public Schools, MACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. After their mother's death, 11-year-old George and 5-year-old James live with their dad on Dove Island across the bay from St. Ann's. One summer day a young woman named Caroline rents a bike from the boys' father, and the boys offer to show her the island. Soon Caroline shares every Saturday with the family, much to the pleasure of James and his father, but to the distress of George, who sees Caroline winning his father's love. When Caroline is invited to spend Christmas with them, George devises a plan, neatly wrapped as a holiday gift, to derail Caroline's visit. How he comes to terms with his actions makes a story that children will readily identify with. Once again Bunting hits home, deftly building her characters. The chill of the winter wind matches the chill in George's emotions. The briskly paced novel will capture many readers. Realistic black-and-white drawings add to the flavor. Deborah Abbott

From Kirkus Reviews
``The ice looks so still, but I know everything is moving out there, the pieces fitting themselves together,'' says 11-year-old George of the frozen harbor beyond his house. In one elegant sentence, Bunting (Night of the Gargoyles, p. 1122, etc.; A Day's Work, see above) manages to convey the shifting and unstable world of a child whose mother has died. This book, which is about George's father's remarriage, quietly and accurately captures the way feisty George tries to turn his grief into anger, and finally fails. It is marred by dialogue that is at times too elegant (``Oh, surely they wouldn't,'' the preteen thinks when someone mentions remarriage; ``And I send mine to her,'' says a five-year-old boy when told someone has sent their love his way). But we're always swiftly lured back to where we belong--the child's perspective- -whether pondering the odds of being grabbed by an octopus or wondering if Santa's going to make it through a storm. Beautifully rendered, from the depiction of the in-between days of Dove Islanders waiting for an ice-bridge of discarded Christmas trees to be built to the myriad odd little places Bunting finds love (in one scene it's a badly knitted scarf that's too long because the knitter ``just didn't want to stop''). Powerful and poignant. (Fiction. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


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After their mother's death, 11-year-old George and 5-year-old James live with their dad on Dove Island across the bay from St. Ann's. One summer day a young woman named Caroline rents a bike from the boys' father, and the boys offer to show her the island. Soon Caroline shares every Saturday with the family, much to the pleasure of James and his father, but to the distress of George, who sees Caroline winning his father's love. When Caroline is invited to spend Christmas with them, George devises a plan, neatly wrapped as a holiday gift, to derail Caroline's visit. How he comes to terms with his actions makes a story that children will readily identify with. Once again Bunting hits home, deftly building her characters. The chill of the winter wind matches the chill in George's emotions. The briskly paced novel will capture many readers. Realistic black-and-white drawings add to the flavor.


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