Amazon.com Reviews
The eponymous heroine of Gwyn Rubio's Icy Sparks is only 10 years old the first time it happens. The sudden itching, the pressure squeezing her skull, and the "little invisible rubber bands" attached to her eyelids are all symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. At this point, of course, Icy doesn't yet have a name for these unsettling impulses. But whenever they become too much to resist, she runs down to her grandparents' root cellar, and there she gives in, croaking, jerking, cursing, and popping her eyes. Nicknamed the "frog child" by her classmates, Icy soon becomes "a little girl who had to keep all of her compulsions inside." Only a brief confinement at the Bluegrass State Hospital persuades her that there are actually children more "different" than she.
As a first novel about growing up poor, orphaned, and prone to fits in a small Appalachian town, Icy Sparks tells a fascinating story. By the time the epilogue rolls around, Icy has prevailed over her disorder and become a therapist: "Children silent as stone sing for me. Children who cannot speak create music for me." For readers familiar with this particular brand of coming-of-age novel--affliction fiction?--Icy's triumph should come as no great surprise. That's one problem. Another is Rubio's tendency to lapse into overheated prose: this is a novel in which the characters would sooner yell, pout, whine, moan, or sass a sentence than simply say it. But the real drawback to Icy Sparks is that some of the characters--especially the bad ones--are drawn with very broad strokes indeed, and the moral principles tend to be equally elementary: embrace your difference, none of us is alone, and so on. When Icy gets saved at a tent revival, even Jesus takes on the accents of a self-help guru: "You must love yourself!" With insights like these, this is one Southern novel that's more Wally Lamb than Harper Lee. --Mary Park
From Publishers Weekly
The diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome isn't mentioned until the last pages of Rubio's sensitive portrayal of a young girl with the disease. Instead, Rubio lets Icy Sparks tell her own story of growing up during the 1950s in a small Kentucky town where her uncontrollable outbursts make her an object of fright and scorn. "The Saturday after my [10th] birthday, the eye blinking and poppings began.... I could feel little invisible rubber bands fastened to my eyelids, pulled tight through my brain and attached to the back of my head," says Icy, who thinks of herself as the "frog child from Icy Creek." Orphaned and cared for by her loving grandparents, Icy weathers the taunts of a mean schoolteacher and, later, a crush on a boy that ends in disappointment. But she also finds real friendship with the enormously fat Miss Emily, who offers kindness and camaraderie. Rubio captures Icy's feelings of isolation and brings poignancy and drama to Icy's childhood experiences, to her temporary confinement in a mental institution and to her reluctant introduction?thanks to Miss Emily and Icy's grandmother?to the Pentecostal church through which she discovers her singing talent. If Rubio sometimes loses track of Icy's voice, indulges in unconvincing magical realism and takes unearned poetic license with the speech of her Appalachian grandparents ("'Your skin was as cold as fresh springwater, slippery and strangely soothing to touch'"), her first novel is remarkable for its often funny portrayal of a child's fears, loves and struggles with an affliction she doesn't know isn't her fault. Agent, Susan Golomb; editor, Jane von Mehren. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This enthralling story takes us into the heart and mind of little Icy Sparks, where we learn firsthand what it is like to grow up with a serious disability. Raised in backwoods Kentucky by her maternal grandparents, Matanni and Patanni, Icy would have had a hard enough life even without the onset of Tourette's syndrome at the age of ten. The violent spasms, croaks, and popping eyes earn her the nickname "frog child," and we see how her childhood is marred by the humiliation of the illness. After an extremely bad episode, Icy is committed to a state hospital, where an attempt at diagnosis fails and a period of overmedication renders her senseless. It is not until college that the correct diagnosis is made, and Icy can reach true understanding. Her journey from childhood to adulthood, with all of its obstacles, is inspiring and truly touches the heart. This tale, read by Kate Miller, engenders love and empathy for the disabled, as it illustrates that while outwardly they may appear to be different, inside they are the same as everyone else. Highly recommended for all school and public libraries. Marjorie Lemon, SRCF-Mercer, PACopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Tara Bayton
Rubio is a writer of uncommonly warm and tender vision, often comic, brimming with love and hope.
From AudioFile
Icy Sparks is a sparkly, sharp name for a character who struggles to keep her own stars in an acceptable orbit. Raised by her grandparents in Kentucky hill country, Icy tries to fit in despite the inexplicable urges that consume her. Immediately, the listener can empathize with the narrator: What did happen to people, especially children, who had to cope with conditions like Tourette's syndrome before it was understood and recognized? Kate Miller's rendering of the lyrical accent and pent-up emotion is admirable. An engrossing story is smoothly interpreted by Miller; all Icy's frustration, courage, and humor are there for the reader to experience, right up to the inspiring ending. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Growing up in a small town in Kentucky, young Icy Sparks is set apart from her classmates by her weird mannerisms and strange noises. Not until she becomes an adult does Icy learn that her tics, croaks, and groans are all part of Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disease of which few people in the 1950s were aware. As a child, Icy suffers through taunts and mockery by her classmates. Even the adults closest to her--her loving grandparents who raise her, her school principal, and her despicable fourth-grade teacher--view her with alarm. Icy is sent to a children's asylum, where doctors try to discover the cause of her disease. While she is in the asylum, Icy begins to see beyond her own differences to the sufferings of others far worse off than she. Although many of the characters in this first novel are portrayed so simplisticly that they are either very good or unbelievably bad, this is a fast-moving and enjoyable narrative. A good choice for public libraries. Nancy Pearl
From Kirkus Reviews
An overwritten, underdeveloped story celebrating Appalachia and a young woman who suffers from Tourette's syndrome. Kentucky's backwoodsy mountains are the setting for this chronicle of a girl who, as an infant, was called Icy by her dying mother because she was as ``cold as the bottom of Icy creek.'' Here in the hollows, where coal is still mined, country ways prevail: people are mostly kind, but ignorance and fear can also make them behave cruelly. Descriptions (of them and the countryside) augment the rather thin tale of Icy, for the most part a sequence of vivid and brutal set-pieces: the girls encounter with a sadistic fourth-grade teacher; her spell in the state asylum; her first and failed romance at 13. Icy also does a lot of walking around the hollows and visiting with her family and few good friends. Lovingly raised by her grandparents, and befriended by the overweight Miss Emily, who encourages Icy to dream of college and a different life, she first experiences alarming symptoms at age ten. When stressed, she begins croaking like a frog, her eyes pop, and she helplessly lets loose a string of offensive epithets. But its the 1950s, and not even the kindly asylums doctor knows what's wrong. Once shes home again, Icy (called Frog Child by some), now shunned by her peers and feared by the locals, leads a lonely life studying the books provided by Miss Emily and a generous school principal. When her grandfather dies, her grandmother joins a church, and Icy, persuaded to come along, learns that her beautiful singing voice can be an asset to the choir. Eventually, this will win her the acceptance she's long yearned for. An epilogue details the diagnosis she receives at college, which finally vindicates her. Well intentioned, for sure, but Icy is too much the poster child for great success as fiction. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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