In this middle-grade novel, Addie has to draw on all her resilience to look after herself and her little brother, Billy, when their mother, who struggles with depression and alcholism, leaves unexpectedly. Addie's mom has left again.
Addie's mom is good at two things (three, if you count making French toast): surfing and telling stories.
Addie and her brother, Billy, live with their mom in a shabby rental cabin in the tourist town of Cedarveil, BC, right off the beach. Their lives are a little different than some-they often visit the food bank, and they don't have a phone or TV. For entertainment, their mom tells them stories before bed...if she's in a good mood, or home at all. Sometimes Mama copes with her depression by drinking; sometimes, she just disappears.
When Addie wakes up one Monday, she senses a stillness that tells her Mama's gone again. Addie knows it's up to her to take care of everything until her mom gets back. It's either not let on that anything's amiss or she and Billy will be separated from one another. Once again she makes it through until her mom's return a week later, knowing that she's strong enough to survive alone-but she's hoping this will be the last time.
Key Selling Points
• In their small coastal town, Addie lives with her mom and little brother...until her mom (who struggles with alcoholism and depression) leaves and Addie is forced to take care of herself and her brother, without anyone finding out.
• Refusing the easy answers, Picture a Girl looks unflinchingly at the life of an 11-year-old girl who has learned to be an adult in her mother's absence and to lie to keep her family together.
• Shows surfing in a less glamorous way, as Addie's mother's only true "happy place" and an obsession that can take precedence over her kids-but also reveals it as a way forward for the family, after she returns and promises to give Addie and Billy regular surfing lessons.
• Jenny Manzer is the author of Save Me, Kurt Cobain, which was nominated for the Bolen Books Children's Book Prize, and My Life as a Diamond, which was nominated for numerous awards and named one of Bank Street College of Education's Best Books of the Year.
