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295 pp.
| Candlewick |
September, 2003 |
TradeISBN 0-7636-1325-8$$16.99
(3)
4-6
This finely detailed portrait of a 1920s Croatian-American family is narrated in the distinctive first-person voice of twelve-year-old Cuss. Cuss loves school but realizes he may need to quit after his older brothers leave town under mysterious circumstances, his younger brother goes deaf, and his mother seems certain to lose her house. The often overwhelming desperation of the protagonist is convincingly depicted.