Loose Threads
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Struggling with issues of popularity in junior high school, trying to understand her too-perfect mother, dealing with her feelings about friends, and coming to terms with Grandma Margie’s cancer diagnosis and illness, Kay is awhirl with questions that have no easy answers. But Kay is a survivor, and as she journeys through these difficult months she comes to a new understanding of the complexities and importance of faith and family.
Told through forthright and perceptive poems in Kay’s own voice, Loose Threads reverberates with emotion and depth and will leave no reader untouched.
Lorie Ann Grover
Lorie Ann Grover is the author of young adult novels including Hit, which Hypable calls “a powerful book about tragedy and recovery which shows you both sides of the story, for better or worse.” She has authored Loose Threads, a Booklist Top 10 Youth First Novel, and On Pointe, a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year. As a literacy advocate, she is a co-founder of readergirlz, which was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prize.
Read more from Lorie Ann Grover
On Pointe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hold Me Tight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Loose Threads
2 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow this story was intense. I liked the poems without form. It was nice to feel the back and forth of the poetry. It was a rough topic to tackle.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loose Threads is Lorie Ann Grover's first book. It is a story told in poems about breast cancer and the lives it touches. Each relatively short poem has an underlined heading that keeps the plot moving forward. Some poems are wistful and focus on a truth that the main character, thirteen year-old Kay, comes to understand. Other poems are about the mundane things in life like cockroaches in the kitchen or the pleasure of watching a TV show or eating in the school cafeteria. It is a story that works on several levels: a girl coming of age, a family in crisis, the devastation of breast cancer, and the continuity of life and familial love. It is a quick 300 pages that holds interest primarily due to the believability of the characters.
Book preview
Loose Threads - Lorie Ann Grover
Contents
M*A*S*H
What They Know
Breaking the Silence
Other Stuff
What to Do
Good Night
Bottles and Beauty
The Drawer
The Phone
2:00 AM.
We’ve Lost
Comfort
Fine
It Seems Like
One Thing I Remember
Work
Mosquitoes
The Bus
Bites
Poison
Science
The Project
Study Hall
The Lunchroom
Real Stuff
Routine
Checking
The Biopsy Appointment
The Porch
Everyone Knows
Talking with Deb and Sheray
Before School
A Good Day
After School
The Roach Mobile
Rules in Junior High
Way Easier
Memorizing
Sunday Morning
Sunday Evening
Scuttling
The Biopsy
The Water Fountain
Safer
Pre-algebra
A Little Incision
Questions
She’s Up
Waiting
Not that Bad
Researching
What I See
The First Knitting Lesson
Mistakes
Study Hall
Why?
Tracing
Favorite Pastime
Making Chicken Pot Pie
Click
Telling
Sweetness
Silently
Fault
Choices
Looking out the Window
Can’t
The Next Second
Limp
Preparation
Looking
Suspicious
The Cool Cloud
Mom and Me Love Bowling
Time
Peach
A Nap
Questions
So Unbelievable
Never Ever Hear
Hairdos
Gum
Decision
Nightmare
This Morning
Chatter
The Cafeteria
In the Crowded Hall
PE
We Hate It
Period
Another Nightmare
Thmp
The Surgery
Recovery
For Her
Tangy Sweet
Aren’t Saying It
She’s Home
The Two of Them
Order
The Recovery
Super Serious
Hug
They All
Time
Friends
Hit the Showers, Ladies
Her Friends
Warrior
On the Way to the Diner
One Evening
Mean
Squeezed
Wiggly Jiggly Prostheses
Two Bumps
Sleepover
Just in Case
The Roach
Radiation
Tired
The Waiting Room
Chemo
Between Treatments
Hiding
A Whole Lot Harder
Eat
Pep Rally
Weeks
Up with Grandma Margie Last Night
Outside
Health
Aware
The Door Bell
Pick, Pick
Art
Less
Shave It
Dinner
Does It Matter?
Clean
What’s Best
Pre-algebra Now
To Finish
Gin
Unloading
Taking Our Walk
Again
Right Now
Vacation
Thanksgiving
I Call Her
She Didn’t Tell Us
The Nerve
Mama Mia’s Taco Town
During a Commercial
Mom?
Paint
Checkups
That Doctor’s Fault
In My Room
What’s Next?
Breakfast
Crawdad
It’s Obvious
Figuring It Out
Church
The Church Friends I Had
Thinking During the Sermon
During Prayer
The Butt
Hi
Winter Break
The Usual
Mom’s Turn
A Gift
In the Kitchen
Good Morning
Christmas
The Beach
Race
Our Hair
The Wig
New Year’s Eve
A Whisper
Back to School
Treatments
A Spot
Captain Crabs
Dad
Why Him?
Whisperings
Late
The Empty Hall
For Keeps
Nuts
Locked
Shopping with Mom
The Keys
The Deli
The Lessons Continue
Floating
Do You?
Blah, Blah, Blah
Out-a-towners
The Bouquet
Practice
By Accident
Running
Sorry
Nope
No One
The Mind Readers
Bizarro
Study Hall Rethought
How Are You?
Shortness
Faithful
Afraid
Now
Hattie
Evening Walk
Checking
Why?
Touching
Testing It Out
Charts
I Pretend
Hallucinations
Kinds
Explosion
A Day
Mixing Her Coffee
Sick of It
Skin and Bones
Air-conditioning
Incomplete
Missing Parts
No More
Today
Examples of Singular Verb Forms Ending in S
Leaving
Preparations
The Truth
The Others
The Nurse
Can’t Make It
Missing Out
Part
School Conference
Okay
Enough
My Mother
Gurgle
Aside
Quietly
No!
Amazing
The Body
Three
The Last Prayer
Zip
Beds
Time Passing
Questions
Fake
Disgusting
Yelling at Mom in the Ladies’ Room
Dead
A Kiss
The Service
First
The Receiving Line
They Came
The Hall Mirror
Mom
The Hearse
The Burial
Herein
Later
The Gathering
How Dare They?
Crunch
Losing My Mind
Afterward
A Card
No Wonder
Fishing
The Newspaper
Shoes
Wobbling
Deb Calls
Giving to Charity
My Pastor
Knit Together
Her Favorite
Sweetness
Sunshower
Best
Radar
Telling the Truth
2:00 A.M.
Back to School
First Sip
Author’s Note
Resource
Dedicated to
MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, EULA MERCER,
1904–1986
MY GRANDMOTHER, MARGIE GARBER,
1921–1983
AND MY MOTHER, KARINE LEARY,
B. 1943
Special Thanks to
MY HUSBAND, DAVID GROVER;
MY PASTOR, TOM LYON;
AND MY EDITOR, EMMA DRYDEN
M*A*S*H
Our living room
is cozied up with laughter.
Great Gran Eula smiles at the colonel
and sips her iced tea.
Grandma Margie snickers at Radar
over her knitting.
Mom laughs at Hot Lips
and doesn’t finish paying the bills.
I laugh so hard at Hawkeye
my beanbag chair
squishes under me.
We finally stop laughing
during the commercial,
and Grandma Margie says,
"I found a lump
in my breast."
What They Know
A lump?
I ask.
On my left side.
I’m sure it’s nothing,
says Gran Eula.
Probably just fluid,
says Mom.
Certainly benign,
says Gran Eula.
We’ll see,
says Grandma Margie.
I made a doctor’s appointment.
All I’m thinking is,
I don’t want to see or know
anything
about lumps
in Grandma Margie.
Breaking the Silence
"You didn’t say
how school went today, Kay," Mom says.
Fine,
I mumble.
Anything happen?
Grandma Margie asks.
Not really,
I say.
What did you learn?
asks Gran Eula.
All that comes to mind is
Mr. Ball
spraying his air freshener
in English class,
trying to cover up his cigarette smoke
left over from break.
Tssssssssss,
till a cloud hovered
over us.
Smelled like
we were
in a flower field on fire.
"Most singular verb forms end in s,"
he chanted,
his big hair
cutting a passage through the room.
"Singular verb forms end in s,"
I finally answer.
That they do,
says Gran Eula.
Other Stuff
"Deb, Sheray, David, and I
are doing a science project
together," I add.
"Working as a team
is always fun," says Grandma Margie.
"Just don’t let those three
leave you with all the work, sugarplum."
Gran Eula clinks her ice cubes
against her glass.
Kay knows better than that,
says Mom.
I squirm down in my beanbag chair,
remembering how I did do that
on last year’s project.
I was the one who pinned
all those dead butterflies
to the cardboard
after I caught them
and killed them.
No, we’ll share the work,
I say.
I hope so.
Gran Eula gives me
the eye.
What to Do
Maybe we should discuss the lump,
Mom says.
M*A*S*H comes back on.
None of us watch.
Now, Karine,
says Gran Eula,
no need for that tonight.
But—,
says Mom.
Karine.
Grandma Margie and I watch those two
go back and forth.
But—,
Sh. Sh.
Fine.
Mom slaps the checkbook down.
Fine my daughter will be,
says Gran Eula.
Good Night
We missed the ending
of the show.
Grandma Margie clicks off the TV.
Good night,
says Gran Eula.
She carries her glass to the kitchen.
Good night,
says Mom,
leaving the pile of bills on the table.
Good night,
I tell Grandma Margie
even though it isn’t one.
Good night, Kay.
I look back.
Grandma Margie stays in her chair,
yarn between her fingers,
staring at her reflection
on the blank TV
Bottles and Beauty
We brush our hair.
Natural pig bristles.
Brush our teeth.
Baking soda included.
Floss.
Waxed and minty.
Glop on cold cream.
Thick and white.
Rinse.
Tingly fresh.
Cake on mango masks.
Pink and gritty.
Smear on aloe lotion.
Smooth and soft.
Spray on flower scents.
Sweet and light.
All the stuff we do,
all the stuff we use,
to be healthy and beautiful
doesn’t stop a lump
from growing,
I guess.
The Drawer
I open the bathroom