Missing Sisters

by Gregory Maguire Narrated by Angela Goethals

Overview

Alice's life is about to change.

She's a skinny orphan. She's never been able to hear too well. And she can't speak too well, either. The only person who seems to care for her-one of the nuns at the orphanage-gets taken away from Alice in a freak accident.

And then one day somebody calls Alice by the wrong name.

Miami, she says.

Miami Shaw.

Miami Shaw, who may be Alice's twin sister.

Who lives only a few miles away.

Who has what Alice has always dreamed of-a whole wonderful family. But is there a place in that family for Alice?

From bestselling author Gregory Maguire comes a funny, heartrending story of the strength of sisterhood and the struggle to find a family of one's own.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Affectionate humor and a particularly well-defined setting lend distinction to this touching novel set in 1968. Alice, a 12-year-old beset by hearing and speech impediments, lives in an orphanage run by nuns in upstate New York. After Sister Vincent de Paul, Alice's closest friend and supporter, is severely injured in a fire, no one explains to Alice that the sister has been sent for a long stay in a nursing home. Alice, worrying that Sister Vincent has died, makes a pact with God: until she knows that Sister Vincent will recover, she won't even consider an offer of adoption that has been extended to her--her first. A girl Alice despises gets her place, but Alice has a drama of her own, inadvertently learning that she may have a twin sister. With a mixture of cunning and courage, Alice finds her. Maguire, who spent some of his childhood in a Catholic children's home, avoids pat and obvious resolutions, and he conveys Alice's faith lightly but substantively. Characterizations of the Catholic environment are sharp and funny. Some poignant, genuinely suspenseful moments express, among other truths, the value of individuality. Ages 10-14. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7-A portrait of a 12-year-old handicapped girl, raised by a stern group of nuns, emerges from this ragged novel. Alice has spent her life in an orphanage, steeped in rigid religiousness and-because of her hearing and speech impediments-in confusion. When the one nun who is sensitive to Alice tragically vanishes from her life, the girl's isolation is compounded by grief. Then, through a fluke of mistaken identity, she discovers that she has an identical twin sister who does not suffer from disabilities and who has a loving, supportive adoptive family. As Alice struggles to find her place, the story struggles to deal with attitudes that seem dated and off-balance without really giving a sense of upstate New York in the 1960s. Supporting characters and issues are left dangling, although Alice, finally, is not; her sudden adoption in the last few pages is abrupt and unsettling. An imperfect book, but an unusual look at Catholic family values and at a troubled child.-Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173579218
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/30/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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