Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming: Everyone Needs a Place to Call Home
Written: Sep 04 '01 (Updated Sep 05 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A more female-oriented "survival story," protagonist with depth
Cons: Small print and 300+ pages could frighten off some kids
The Bottom Line: This is one of those books that has made an impact on my life. Read it!
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| jenninca's Full Review: Cynthia Voigt - Homecoming |
I must have been around seventh or eighth grade when it happened. My mother decided that I was too old to be reading from the juvenile section of the library and decided to start me on young adult books. For Christmas, she bought me three books by Cynthia Voigt, which I enjoyed so much, I bought or read many of her other books. Little did my mother know that children's books would turn into my passion, and I would amass a collection of about 1600 of them by the age of 25 (aka now!). But little did I know that Cynthia Voigt's books, particularly those about Dicey Tillerman and her friends, would become almost as much a part of my teenage years as Laura Ingalls Wilder's books were a part of my elementary years.
The first book in what Voigt calls "The Tillerman Family Cycle" is Homecoming (not The Homecoming, as it is incorrectly listed here). When one hears the word homecoming, most people probably think of football games, tailgating, or dances. But Cynthia Voigt's use of the word is about as far away from that definition as it can possibly be.
Homecoming is about thirteen-year-old Dicey Tillerman, her younger brothers James and Sammy, and her younger sister Maybeth. They live with their mother in an old, run-down shack by the ocean. Their father's been gone for years, and money's always been tight. But then Momma loses her job as a grocery store checker, and things seem to snowball. The kids soon find themselves abandoned in a shopping mall parking lot. Dicey thinks that her mother lost her mind and simply forgot they even existed.
But before Momma left them, she had them pack up grocery sacks of food and clothes. On each sack, she has Dicey write the address of a great-aunt: Mrs. Cilla Logan, 1724 Ocean Drive, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Dicey thinks that Momma probably went there, to Dicey's only known relative, for help. So Dicey decides that she and her siblings are going to walk there.
The journey will not be an easy one. The route is several dozen miles long and they have only $12.00 with which to buy food. The little kids can't walk very far in a day. But the family has always been a close one, and they're willing to give it a try together. And so begins their journey of searching for a place to call home.
All of Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman family novels deal with people who don't fit into the mainstream society. Dicey and her family don't fit because of their run-down shack, their lack of money, and the rumors that circulate about Momma's craziness. It was almost, I don't know, inspiring to see how a family with so little to be happy about could be so content and so close-knit.
Homecoming has a sequel, Dicey's Song, which follows Dicey's life as she adjusts to her new home. It's a great self-discovery book and was awarded a Newbery Medal for being voted the best children's book published that year. There are four other books in the Tillerman Cycle. Seventeen Against the Dealer is a third book about Dicey, this time as she approaches adulthood. Come a Stranger is about Dicey's friend Mina as she adjusts to her sometimes unwelcome role as a strong, black female. A Solitary Blue is about Dicey's friend Jeff, who is trying to resolve his relationship with his flower-child mother. The Runner is about the Tillerman's uncle's adolescense and his struggle to accept his role as a white person in his civil-rights-era society.
Over the years, I have read these books, particularly Homecoming and Dicey's Song, so many times that I could really be writing this review from memory. However, I'm always looking for an excuse to read them again. They're written at approximately a sixth or seventh grade reading level and could probably be enjoyed by kids in fifth grade and up. There's no objectionable material to be found--a rare thing in a young adult book--unless you think that your child might feel some emotional distress at the thought of a mother abandoning her children. I would say that this book is going into my fifth grade classroom library, but it's not. At least, it's not going until I get another copy. I don't want to risk losing such a wonderful book!
Recommended:
Yes
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jenninca
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