Wednesday why not read...On Little Wings by Regina Sirois

Kindle  Nook

Jennifer must do the impossible – bring her mother home. When a family is torn apart by death, two sisters take violently divergent paths and the story of their family appears to end terribly and abruptly. Two decades later Jennifer never dreams that the photo she finds stuck between the pages of a neglected book will tear open a gaping wound to her mother’s secret past. Abandoning her comfortable life with her parents and best friend in the wheat fields of Nebraska, Jennifer’s quest for a hidden aunt leads her to the untamed coast of Maine where she struggles to understand why her mother lied to her for sixteen years.

Across the grey, rocky cove she meets Nathan Moore, the young, reluctant genius surrounded by women who need him to be brother, father, friend, provider, protector and now, first love. The stories, varied, hilarious, and heartbreaking, unfold to paint a striking mural of the shattered past. As Jennifer seeks to piece together her mother’s story, she inadvertently writes one for herself.  (Book synopsis from Goodreads.)

The descriptions in this book are wonderful word pictures and very sensory rich.  I could see and feel the places Ms. Sirois described; the emotions were well conveyed, bringing tears to my eyes several times.  When I made the connection to the book’s title I got pretty excited, my poor students who happened to be around when I did that got an earful.  The main characters end almost every day by quoting a line from literature and talking over it’s meaning.  My "line" after reading it is:   “Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.”  Henry David Thoreau.  So much is lost during the course of the story: time, family, first love, faith, and opportunities.  And yet, so much is found, carefully redeemed, fragile in nature, just waiting and needing the proper nurturing to make it grow and set it free.

My favorite quotes…

Pg. 38  - My bones vibrate from the inside out whenever I think about it.

Pg. 76 - The very air seemed to be a memory.

Pg. 79  - …a mural only God could paint.

Pg. 80  - I didn’t speak, my eyes too hungry to share my brain with my mouth.

pg. 345  - The wind stirred through the air, swept my cheeks, but it was the tapping finger of a child unable to get his mother’s attention.            

I am looking forward to meeting Ms.Sirios, in March, at the Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, MO.