Grounded
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A middle grade novel about a 12-year-old girl dealing with loss, who uncovers a rather grisly scam involving a crematorium.
After her brother, sister, and father die in a plane crash, Daralynn Oakland receives 237 dolls from well-wishers, resulting in her nickname: Dolly. But dolls are little comfort to a twelve-year-old girl whose world is rocked by the dramatic changes in her life, including her angry, grieving mother's new job as a hairstylist at the local funeral home.
Dolly gets a job, too, where she accidentally invents a fashionable new haircut. But in Grounded by Kate Klise, her real work begins when a crematorium comes to town, and someone has to save a dying business, solve a burning mystery, and resuscitate the broken hearts in Digginsville, Missouri, population 402.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Klise (the 43 Old Cemetery Road series) spins an insightful story about loss and family, set in the tiny town of Digginsville, Mo., told from the plainspoken perspective of 12-year-old Daralynn Oakland. Her brother, sister, and father die in a plane crash, leaving her with her brusque mother, who refuses help or sympathy, and her senile grandmother. Her mother keeps herself busy with a new job as a hairstylist at the local funeral home, while Daralynn is stuck at home, eating frozen dinners ("After the grief casseroles tapered off, Mother lost the will to cook"), examining her life B.C. (Before the Crash) and A.D. (After the Deaths), and recording letters to her siblings and father in her Pertinent Facts Important Information book. When the mysterious Mr. Clem opens a crematorium nearby and steals the heart of Daralynn's vivacious Aunt Josie, it poses a threat to the funeral home's business, and the town. Balancing Daralynn's family tragedy with gentle humor and an evocative late-1960s setting, Klise's writing is refreshingly matter-of-fact and studded with simple, powerful images and memorable, entertaining characters. Ages 9 13.
