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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Moranville, Sharelle Byars

Surprise Lily

233 pp. | Holiday | October, 2019 | Trade ISBN 978-0-8234-4264-5 $16.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-8234-4399-4
(2) 4-6 Fourth grader Rose is content living on the Lovell family farm with her grandmother Tulip, continuing the tradition of Lovell women fending for themselves. Then her mother Iris, who abandoned Rose as a baby, suddenly reappears in Rose's life. Iris loves Rose and baby daughter Lily, Rose's half-sister, but is unable to care for them, so Rose decides to take care of Lily by herself. She tries to make a home for the two of them (in Iris's filthy, barely furnished apartment) but eventually returns, with Lily, to Tulip's house, bringing the Lovell family story full circle and healing some of the decades-long conflicts. Rose's story is interspersed with chapters presenting the previous generations of Lovell women, from early 1900s matriarch Belle through Iris's early childhood, and Moranville draws clear connections among the generations while also presenting their struggles with depression, unhappy marriages, and addiction at an age-appropriate level. The Lovell farm is as much a character as a setting, and the book does an excellent job of portraying a contemporary rural community. Though the metaphors (such as Rose's affinity for a calf abandoned by its mother) can be heavy-handed, Moranville has a talent for evocative language: "When Rose said auhnt she felt like she had to lift her chin so high she might step in something."
Reviewer: Sarah Rettger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2020

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