Breda's Island
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the vein of When You Trap a Tiger and Shouting at the Rain, this is the story of the journey one girl undertakes to find herself.
After Breda Moriarity gets caught stealing one too many times, Breda's mom sends her to Ireland, a place she has never been, to live with the grandfather she has never met.
While Breda doesn’t want to be in this strange land, she finally gets to meet Granda, her mom’s father. He’s a grumpy farmer who is also a seanchaí, a traditional Gaelic storyteller. But the most important story is the one nobody will talk about: what happened to her absent father. If nothing else this summer, Breda is determined to figure out the truth about her family’s history—and herself.
This powerfully poignant middle grade novel, the first from award-winning author Jessie Ann Foley, asks questions about estranged relationships, immigration, and family secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Foley's (You Know I'm No Good) atmospheric story follows 12-year-old Breda Moriarity during a transformative summer in her mother Maura's native Ireland. Pregnant with Breda at 17, Maura left her stern widowed father for Chicago, building a life for them there as an undocumented immigrant and opening a successful beauty salon while avoiding any mention of Breda's father. When Breda, lonely for her mother's attention, turns to petty thievery, Maura sends her for the summer to taciturn, aging Granda, a vigorous farmer and respected storyteller of Irish legends who has secrets of his own. In County Kerry, on the westernmost edge of Ireland, Breda and Granda's relationship proceeds from rocky to grudgingly respectful to loving. As Breda explores the countryside on her mother's refurbished bike, she makes real friends for the first time, discovers her skill for playing Gaelic football, and tries to learn her father's identity, all while falling in love with her family's farmland. The narrative arc builds steadily in a book that stands out for its distinctly Irish language and poetic landscape descriptions: "gray crashing water, silent green cliffs, and jackdaws and gannets wheeling against the cloud-streaked sky." Characters cue as white. Ages 8–12.
