Sugaring Off

September 15, 2022
As she did with Grit (2017), French embeds a mystery within a coming-of-age tale set against an unromanticized agricultural New England backdrop. Owl, a 17-year-old White girl, lives on New Hampshire's remote Waits Mountain, where she helps her uncle tend the family maple-sugar operation. At her tiny K-12 school she endures twice-a-week sessions with Ms. Z, the district's teacher for the Deaf. Owl's been partially deaf since she was 7, when her brute of a father hurled her down the stairs--an act that sent him to prison--but she's more adept at reading lips than signing. Just as the sap begins to run in February, two intrusions threaten Owl's hard-won serenity: the arrivals of a letter from her father announcing his release and Cody, a neighbor's troubled, estranged grandson, who'll help with the sugaring. As ever, French weaves her storylines deftly. Owl finds herself attracted to Cody, whose difficult childhood in the foster system could have been hers but for her aunt and uncle; she also begins to warm to both Ms. Z and even possibly the idea of finding a Deaf community. Owl's Passamaquoddy aunt's conflicted relationship with her family of origin and distance from her tribe offers measured counterpoint. By the time a thriller plot kicks in, readers will be thoroughly embedded. Most characters present White; a neighboring Houlton Maliseet family provides thoughtful representation of an Indigenous experience different from Owl's aunt's. Bracing as a late-winter morning. (Fiction. 14-18)

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November 1, 2022
Grades 9-12 A traumatic event in her childhood left Owl partially deaf, her father in prison. Now 17 and long ago formally adopted by her uncle and his wife, she lives in a remote area of the Great North Woods region, sketching the animals she sees while snowshoeing and helping her uncle with the maple syrup harvest. When a neighbor's grandson is hired to help with the sugaring around the same time Owl's father is released on parole, Owl's carefully balanced life threatens to come undone. Still sorting through her own feelings about her hearing loss and her identity, Owl often relates to her Deafness through other people: she clings to a friendship that tethers her to the hearing world, she resents the teacher who makes her Sign, she questions her aunt's difficult relationship with her own Passamaquoddy heritage. The austere narrative undergoes a significant tonal shift when a sudden murder tilts it toward thriller territory, but Owl's character remains consistent: watchful, resolute, and holding tightly to the things she refuses to lose.

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December 1, 2022

Gr 9 Up-Growing up in an isolated, small town is difficult at best, but for 17-year-old Owl, partially deaf as the result of her father's abuse, it is the haven she needed to find safety and love. Adopted by her uncle Seth and his wife, Holly, Owl has healed with stories from Holly's Passamaquoddy culture and Seth's steady hand as they go about the business of farming maple syrup. Seth hires the grandson of their neighbor; Cody is the product of serial foster homes and is resistant to kindness, but Owl is charmed by his city ways and his pleasure in discovering the wilderness. As they work together, he slowly opens up to Owl and they begin a friendship that turns to more. Owl often feels at odds, not quite at home in either the deaf or hearing world. With the help of her deaf instructor, she begins to accept herself. When Cody's past comes to claim him, Owl intervenes to help, placing herself and her loved ones in danger. Paced with the smoothness of flowing maple sugar, this book is to be savored. Each word has been chosen to describe the seasons both outside, and within each character. Themes of both sexuality and violence are included, but are relevant to the story. Holly begins to face her own disconnect of living between two worlds-her white home and the Passamaquoddy family she left long ago-and sets the stage to help Owl take her own first steps toward healing with her father. VERDICT Recommended. Give to students who ponder, who like their action-adventure to be served with a careful build-up and on-the-edge-of-your-seat wilderness action.-Connie Williams

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