Research Catalog

Title

Rabble Starkey / Lois Lowry.

Author

Lowry, Lois.

Publication

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

192 pages; 22 cm

Summary

• When Rabble Starkey's grandmother saw her for the first time, she said: "look at them sea-green eyes. Look at that ginger-colored hair. Lord, Lord, trouble lies ahead for that child." So she and Rabble's mother, Sweet-Hosanna, gave her a Bible name, Parable Ann, to stave off what trouble they could. Rabble has had her share of trouble, nonetheless, by the time she is twelve. Her father left her and her fourteen-year-old mother when Rabble was one month old. The years have been hard and uncertain. More than anything, Rabble is looking for stability, and she may have found it now, living with her mother and the Bigelows. Veronica Bigelow is twelve, too, and she's more than Rabble's best friend; she's like a sister. When illness takes Veronica's mother to a distant hospital for months, and Sweet-Hosanna must assume her role, something that feels like a family is formed. And for Rabble, it feels like forever. Lois Lowry has peopled a small Appalachian town with rich, realistic characters: Gunther Bigelow, the homeliest baby in Highriver; Millie Bellows, who spends her last lonely days staring at TV quiz shows and faded family photographs; and Norman Cox, whose world is one of weaponry. Among them Rabble is passing a year that will change her forever, and Lois Lowry is making an unforgettable statement about the nature of families and the value of growth, change, and love. - Jacket flap.
• Many things change for twelve-year-old Rabble Starkey, her mother, and her best friend, Veronica Bigelow when Veronica's mother becomes mentally incapacitated and the Starkeys move in with the Bigelows.

Subject

• Friendship > Juvenile fiction
• Mentally ill > Juvenile fiction
• Mothers and daughters > Juvenile fiction
• Friendship
• Mentally ill
• Mothers and daughters

Genre/Form

• Fiction.
• Juvenile works.
• Novels.

Note

• "And there I was only thirteen years old, and Ginger Starkey, he had finished tenth grade and been out of school for three years -- he was probably twenty, even --" "And you'd never been with a guy who drove his own pickup before, and next thing you knew --" She took the story back from me. "Next thing I knew, we was already in the next county and I made him stop so's I could send a postcard to my mother." "And the postcard said --" That was Veronica asking. Veronica always liked what the postcard said. Sweet-Ho laughed. "Dear Mama, I have gone off to get married and I forgot your molasses. By the time you get this my name will be Sweet Hosanna Starkey." "She forgave you, though," I said with satisfaction. "She forgave me because I came home with a ginger-haired baby," Sweet-Ho said, "and my mama, she was a pushover for babies of any kind and she'd never seen one with hair like that before." She reached over and ran her fingers down through my hair. "It's still just as pretty as your daddy's was, Rabble."--Jacket.

Awards (note)

• Boston Globe/Horn Book Fiction Award Winner, 1987.

Call Number

JFD 87-10120

ISBN

• 0395425069
• 9780395425060
• 0395436079
• 9780395436073

LCCN

86027542

OCLC

14932393

Author

Lowry, Lois.

Title

Rabble Starkey / Lois Lowry.

Publisher

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Awards

Boston Globe/Horn Book Fiction Award Winner, 1987.

Research Call Number

JFD 87-10120

J FIC L