Far Away
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A book about life, loss, and the secrets families keep, reminiscent of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, by National Book Award nominee Lisa Graff.
CJ's Aunt Nic is a psychic medium who tours the country speaking to spirits from Far Away, passing on messages from the dearly departed. And CJ knows firsthand how comforting those messages can be -- Aunt Nic's Gift is the only way CJ can talk to her mom, who died just hours after she was born.
So when CJ learns that she won't be able to speak to her mother anymore, even with Aunt Nic's help, she's determined to find a work-around. She sets off on road trip with her new friend Jax to locate the one object that she believes will tether her mother's spirit back to Earth . . . but what she finds along the way challenges every truth she's ever known. Ultimately, CJ has to sort out the reality from the lies.
National Book Award nominee Lisa Graff has written a poignant, heartfelt novel that explores the lengths we go to protect those we love -- and the power secrets have to change our worlds.
Praise for Far Away:
* "Graff nimbly crafts a credible novel from the unlikely, shaping layered characters and unforeseen plot twists while exploring issues of truth and illusion--and the emotion-infused miasma that separates the two. A genuinely moving and memorable story." --Publishers Weekly, *STARRED REVIEW*
"The story is a genre blend of mystery and realistic family drama . . . Graff never shies away from difficult topics, and this is as brave as expected." --Booklist
"Graff imbues CJ's story with many valuable lessons about forgiveness, respect, and honoring a variety of perspectives. A compelling coming-of-age tale that delicately approaches the complex topics of psychic mediums and grief." --School Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Because her mother allegedly died on the day she was born, and she never knew her father, CJ lives in a tour bus with her Aunt Nic, who works as a psychic medium, reconnecting her devotees with deceased loved ones. CJ likewise benefits from her aunt's "Gift," cherishing the moments when her mother talks to her, via Aunt Nic, through the auspices of "Spirit." On her 12th birthday, CJ is understandably bereft when her mother announces that she will no longer visit, since she's "being drawn Far Away"; CJ has been told that her mother can only be pulled back to Earth by a "tether," an item that the dead treasured while alive. Ostensibly guided by Spirit, CJ sets out with Jax, Aunt Nic's perspicacious teenage employee, to locate her mother's tether, a quest that involves a jumble of cryptic clues, including message-encoded octopus images and a mushroom sculpture her mother created in high school. Graff (The Great Treehouse War) nimbly crafts a credible novel from the unlikely, shaping layered characters and unforeseen plot twists while exploring issues of truth and illusion and the emotion-infused miasma that separates the two. A genuinely moving and memorable story. Ages 8 12.)
