A Secret Shared
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Newbery Medal–winning author Patricia MacLachlan paints a moving portrait of what it means to be a family, the power of love, and the importance of bringing the truth out into the light, in this beautiful and profound story about adoption.
Nora and Ben’s younger sister Birdy loves to keep secrets. She surprises her family more than once: She hides a kitten in her room. She writes a beautiful poem. One day Birdy watches her mother spit into a tube, ready to send it off to find out more about herself and where her family came from. Birdy spits into a tube, too, when no one sees her.
But when the test results come back, they are a surprise. Birdy is seemingly not related to Nora and Ben’s parents. But if she is adopted, how could that have happened without the children knowing?
Nora and Ben must learn when to keep a secret, and who to go to for help—and eventually, how to solve this secret for the entire family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When deeply bonded twins Ben and Nora accidentally discover, through a DNA sample test their mother orders as a subject for her newspaper column, that their beloved younger sister Birdy is Swedish—not Irish, like their mother, or Italian, like their father—they are dumbfounded. Secretly uncovering more of Birdy's story, and trying to decide whether the new information matters, they struggle together to process the stunning realization that their kind and affectionate parents have concealed the truth. This slim story of a loving cued-white family confronting a well-meant deception unfolds slowly, with quiet emotional drama and sometimes improbable gentleness; the children are uncommonly wise and the parents uncommonly calm. MacLachlan's (Wondrous Rex) signature short, careful sentences, delivered in Nora's first-person narration, imbue each phrase with significance, creating a lyrical ambiance that draws readers into the close family circle, particularly as their mother explains the poignant circumstances through which Birdy became part of their family. Especially moving is the depiction of the parents' love for each other as well as their children as they move forward into their newly shared truth. Ages 8–12.
