| Icy Sparks is a young girl living in midwestern America with her grandparents in the 1950s/1960s. She doesn't get along well with her peers and suddenly starts having tics and croaks. Icy goes down into the root cellar to hide these urges from her grandparents and finally tells her friend, Miss Emily Tanner, a local store owner who is also an outcast from society at 300 pounds. Her teachers try putting her in a solitary classroom but even that doesn't work and her grandparents have Icy admitted to a mental institution for observation.
Even in the institution, Icy is an outcast. She sees herself as not as mentally ill as her peers there and is being tormented by one of the hospital workers. She befriends a second worker but really just wants to go home. She is allowed to go home after a while but stays mainly in the house or on the surrounding property, but not in public. After her return home, the atmosphere is tense even there and after her grandfather dies, Icy and her grandmother turn to religion for solace. | ||
|
Plot & Themes Tone of book? - thoughtful Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's Kids growing up/acting up? Yes Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Age group of kid(s) in story: - grade school Something wrong upstairs/downstairs? - mental illness Main Character Gender - Female Profession/status: Age: - a kid Ethnicity/Nationality Main Adversary Identity: - society How sensitive is this character? Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 () Farm/Ranch? Yes Farm/Ranch: - farm Small town? Yes Small town people: - hostile, like Gomer Pyle on steroids Writing Style Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
||