Blom, Jen K. Possum
Summer
Holiday House 2011 155p 17.95 978-0-8234-2331-6
elem VG-BNe Realistic Fiction
War hits Oklahoma when Princess’s father must go to Iraq. She has promised to take care of their farm
but faces much more than ordinary farm life with resilience and
resourcefulness. Eleven-year-old Princess
becomes a mother of a possum after her dog Blackie kills its mother. Conflicts abound after that! Princess must cope with more than any
11-year-old should have to cope with including taking care of her Oklahoma farm
while her father is in Iraq, facing the death of the family’s dog Blackie in a
truck accident and roping a rabid cow that is about to attack. Amid all of this turmoil, she has to keep her
family from finding out that she harbors a baby possum under her sister’s bra
which she has pilfered and used to wrap baby possum Ike around her chest. Author Jen K. Blom clearly loves Oklahoma;
readers will smell the smells, hear the sounds and see the sights of this
beautiful land. If the reader pushes
through the early pages of rising action, he/she will find a lot to appreciate
about this book. Ike has clearly come
into Princess’s life at a time when she is vulnerable, and by the time she must
decide whether or not to return him to the wild, the reader is on her side,
rooting for her to reconcile her confusion about her role in Blackie’s death,
her broken promise to her father to take care of the farm and her grandmother’s
order to return Ike to the wild before Dad returns from a military hospital
where he was wounded in an ambush. A
book that seemingly will not appeal to children from mainstream America turns
out to do just that! All of the
characters are real, the conflicts are numerous and the language is clean. The art work supports the text brilliantly,
giving young readers images to visualize while reading. The appeal of watching a young girl not only
survive, but also take charge, is poignant and universal. Princess tends the farm while Dad
is in Iraq Martha Squaresky
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