 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||
Tokens of Grace strings together more than 40 splendid vignettes to examine one year
in the childhood of two young girls. And because we care so much about these
characters, we come away wondering what became of them in later years."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
MOVING - "It's just a separation, their mother says, slamming the door on their old green house, on the built?in kitchen bench, the ruler giraffe Ryan and Callie measured themselves against, the steep hill of Gardner Street, Mr. and Mrs. Doody, the Little League ballpark, and their beagle, Babe. Babe is going to live on a farm where she can run free, and they are going to live in Barren. In Barren, their house will be an apartment building, which means you can visit your friends in the rain. This is what Ryan told Mr. and Mrs. Doody at their good?bye tea. Ryan drank lemonade from a china cup, and Mrs. Doody sewed a pearl on Chimp's chest so Ryan wouldn't forget them. Mr. Doody's garden was hoed in neat rows. He said Ryan's name would appear in their prayers. Ryan promised to remember them."
In a lyrical mixture of beauty and pain, Sheila O'Connor explores the mysteries and contradictions of childhood against the background of divorce and family relocation. Readers will care a great deal about this family--especially about Callie, the oldest daughter, though whose eyes we see much of what takes place. Sheila O'Connor unfolds the story in brief, intense chapters, with an unsparing eye for emotional truth.
Purchase Tokens of Grace at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble
Ms. O'Connor not only maintains the steady flow of the narrative, she manages to keep it from ever slipping into sentimentality, from ever sounding a wrong note…. Tokens of Grace "accomplishes something extraordinary; it looks without blinking and speaks without pretension….” New York Times Book Review
"Any reader
recovering from a parent's alcoholism, neglect or abuse will recognize Callie's
insistent faith and romantic denials...Tokens of Grace carries a big sweet cry
that lingers."
Minnesota Daily
"A sensitive portrait of change, readjustment, and growth." ALA Booklist
Tokens of Grace "is a powerful haunting collection of stories that bind together to give a continuing picture of the painful experience of the break-up of a family… As Callie whispers her deepest hopes and longing into the tape recorder her father gave her for her 10th birthday, the reader is touched by the unfolding of a year in her young life. These short, revealing chapters tell a brave and painful story of childhood that will evoke memories for many." The Sunday Independent
"No resolution presents itself; life simply continues with tits moments of terror and of grace. O'Connor captures both the toughness and fragility of memory in this man-faceted exploration of one young girl's coming of age." Hurricane Alice
"There is nothing minimal in this small book called Tokens of Grace. These vignettes are pure distillations of memory, the kind of momentous moments one only meets in childhood. As they accrue, one realizes none of these moments has passed without each germinating its own see of belief--a story is growing and the story is a forest in which many of us have lived. Sheila O'Connor should rest content that, in this venture, she has expressed the inexpressible experience." Mary LaChapelle, House of Heroes
"Told
in over forty snapshots that are both lyrical and painful, we discern as much
about this family from what is left out as much as from what is there."
Reading Woman