Lily's Crossing

Overview

This year, as in other years, Lily has planned a spectacular summer in Rockaway, in her family's cozy house on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean. But by the summer of 1944, World War II has changed almost everyone's life. Lily's best friend, Margaret, and her family have moved to a wartime factory town, and worse, much worse, Lily's father is on his way overseas to the war.

Editorial Reviews

Exceptional characterizations and a robust story line turn this WWII homefront novel into far more than a period piece. Spending the summer of '44 at her family's vacation home on the Atlantic, Lily feels angry and deserted when her widower father joins the Army and is sent to Europe just after the Allied invasion. Her ever-critical Gram seems to be breathing down her neck at every turn, and Lily has gotten off on the wrong foot with Albert, the Hungarian refugee boy staying with neighbors. She just can't seem to break out of her self-described role as "a last-row, last-seat kid in school with terrible marks... [who] told lies every other minute." Giff keeps the spotlight off Lily's flaws, refraining as well from overtly linking them to her self-consciousness at being motherless. Rather, she uses them to generate the plot: as Lily and Albert work their way into friendship, Lily tells a lie with unexpected and potentially dangerous consequences. Lily learns her lesson in a resolution that feels psychologically true. In the background, characters cope with wartime shortages, stumble into tragedy as sons and brothers fall in battle-in short, lead complicated lives with the hope of redemption. Closely observed, quickly paced and warmly told, this has all the ingredients that best reward readers. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Patricia Reilly Giff

"I always start each day by writing. That's like breathing to me," says Patricia Reilly Giff. In fact, this bestselling author admits: "I wanted to write from the first time I picked up a book and read. I thought it must be the most marvelous thing to make people dance across the pages." Reading and writing have always been an important part of Patricia Reilly Giff's life. As a child, her favorite books included Little Women, The Secret Garden, the Black Stallion books, the Sue Barton books, and the Nancy Drew series. Giff loved reading so much that while growing up, her sister had to grab books out of her hands to get Giff to pay attention to her; later, Giff's three children often found themselves doing the same thing. As a reading teacher for 20 years, the educational consultant for Dell Yearling and Young Yearling books, an adviser and instructor to aspiring writers, and the author of more than 60 books for children, Patricia Reilly Giff has spent her entire life surrounded by books. After earning a B.A. degree from Marymount College, Giff took the advice of the school's dean and decided to become a teacher. She admits, "I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers--teaching, writing, and my family." During the 20 years of her teaching career, she earned an M.A. from St. John's University, and a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. Then one morning, Giff told her husband Jim, "I'm going to write a book. I've always wanted to write and now I shall." Jim worked quickly to combine two adjacent closets in their apartment into one cramped workspace and, as Giff jokes, she "began [her] career in a closet." Giff explains, "I want the children to bubble up with laughter, or to cry over my books. I want to picture them under a cherry tree or at the library with my book in their hands. But more, I want to see them reading in the classroom. I want to see children in solitude at their desks, reading, absorbing, lost in a book." Giff tries to write books "that say ordinary people are special." She says, "All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school." Therefore, when she runs out of ideas for her books, Giff says, "I take a walk and look around. Maybe I spend some time in a classroom and watch the kids for a while. Sometimes I lie on the living room floor and remember my days in second grade or third. If all that doesn't work, I ask Ali, or Jim, or Bill"--Giff's children, whose names often appear in her books. When she's not writing, Patricia Reilly Giff enjoys reading in the bathtub and going to the movies and eating popcorn. She and her husband reside in Weston, Connecticut. They have three children and five grandchildren. In 1990, Giff combined her two greatest loves--children's books and her family--and, with her husband and her children, opened The Dinosaur's Paw, a children's bookstore named after one of her Kids of the Polk Street School novels. This store is part of Giff's quest to bring children and books together. She and her family are trying to "share our love of children's books and writing and to help others explore the whole world of children's books."

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Additional Info

Imprint

Delacorte Press

Filesize

289.38 KB

Number of Pages

192

eBook ISBN

9780385729932

Awards

• American Library Association Notable Books for Children
• Audie Award
• Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards
• Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award
• Georgia Children's Book Award
• Golden Sower Award
• Great Lakes' Great Books Award
• Great Stone Face Children's Book Award
• Iowa Children's Choice Award
• Mark Twain Award
• Massachusetts Children's Book Award
• Nene Award
• Newbery Medal
• Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award
• Sasquatch Reading Award
• SCASL Book Award (South Carolina)
• Sequoyah Book Award
• Sunshine State Young Reader's Book Award
• William Allen White Children's Book Award
• Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Book Award