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Departure Time

by Truus Matti
214p. 978-1-60898-087-1.
COPY ISBN
Gr 5—8—A 10-year-old girl is lost in a surrealistic landscape—a red-earth desert threatened by an approaching storm. Nothing looks familiar. She can't remember how she got to this place. Alternating with this classic bad-dream setting, which is narrated in the third person, is a first-person, furious tirade by a girl who feels abandoned by her father and neglected by her mother. Readers will be intrigued by the way Matti interweaves these stories and tantalizes with the possible connections between them. At first, the novel is like a puzzle mystery, but as it begins to make more and more sense, readers recognize that the stories are one story about anger and forgiveness, loss and grief, and consolation. Matti takes readers on an enigmatic journey through a landscape that encompasses the profundities of life and death and of love that transcends all boundaries. Remarkable and arresting and wholly original, this novel lingers in the mind long after the last page has been read.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY
In alternating chapters we experience two stories, one about a girl with talking-animal companions, the other about a girl recovering from trauma. Certain elements begin to appear in both--piano music, the smell of gasoline, letters--and the stories finally meet. Matti has created an austere world, stripped of coziness and easy answers, daring in its portrayal of childhood pain and strength.
Reviewed by Miriam Lang Budin , Aug 01, 2010

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