Connor, Leslie. Dead on Town Line.CONNOR, Leslie. Dead on town line. Penguin, Dial. 131p. c2005. 0-8027-3021-7 $15.99. JS This book is The Lovely Bones meets Make Lemonade. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , the narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. is a dead girl whose body has been hidden in a crevice crevice /crev·ice/ (krev´is) fissure. gingival crevice the space between the cervical enamel of a tooth and the overlying unattached gingiva. crev·ice n. at the town line, and she tells her story in free verse free verse, term loosely used for rhymed or unrhymed verse made free of conventional and traditional limitations and restrictions in regard to metrical structure. Cadence, especially that of common speech, is often substituted for regular metrical pattern. as she waits to be found by searchers combing the countryside, draining ponds and lakes, and looking everywhere but where she is. Sixteen-year-old Cassie Devlin lived with her mother, loved and made music, had a boyfriend, and befriended the wrong girl because she felt her duty was to be nice to everyone. But the wrong girl wants to be Cassie, tries to steal her boyfriend, steals her music, and ultimately steals her life. Dead, Cassie befriends another ghost girl, Birdie, murdered some 50 years before. Both watch and wait, virtually powerless to affect the outcome of events except through an extrasensory perception extrasensory perception: see parapsychology. extrasensory perception (ESP) Perception that involves awareness of information about something (such as a person or event) not gained through the senses and not deducible from previous experience. transmitted through the blowing autumn leaves and rustling grass. The themes explore love, loss, death, and life beyond the grave. The conclusion seems to be that love will live on and evil will defeat itself. This slight novel is not great poetry but the story is engaging, the images haunting; and it might work well as a way to introduce young girls to the magic of language. The plot might be for older girls, but the slenderness of the story may make it more appropriate for young girls. Myrna Marler, Assoc. Prof. of English, BYU BYU Brigham Young University BYU Bayou BYU Bob's Your Uncle BYU Bayreuth, Germany - Bindlacher Berg (Airport Code) BYU Beyond Your Understanding , Provo, UT J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers. S--Recommended for senior high school students. |
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