The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Minna wishes for many things. She wishes she understood the quote taped above her mother's typewriter:Fact and fiction are different truths. She wishes her mother would stop writing long enough to really listen to her. She wishes her house were peaceful and orderly like her friend Lucas's. Most of all, she wishes she could find a vibrato on her cello and play Mozart the way he deserves to be played.
Minna soon discovers that some things can't be found-they just have to happen. And as she waits for her vibrato to happen, Minna begins to understand some facts and fictions about herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Minna is technically an excellent cellist, but she wants to find her vibrato. The process of that discovery is almost as elusive as the vibrato itself. As are many of Newbery Medalist MacLachlan's heroines, Minna is serious and questioning, counting objects and categorizing them, and wondering why her mother's fiction-writing isn't considered outright lying. Meanwhile, there is Lucas, a new member of her chamber group who has both a viola and a vibrato. He seems not to need questions or answers, but he does want his very formal parents to fuss over him. Lucas and Minna are different and understand each other in ways that may remind readers of the eponymous heroine of Cassie Binegar and her friend Margaret Mary. While Minna's musings make much of this novel sobering and philosophical, the language is playful and intensely poetic about such familiar of things as a laundry basket of unmatched socks. It is impossible not to be swept into the world of Minna's concerns and to find, among the more absorbing aspects, a simple, sweetly told story. Ages 8-12.
