Gone from home

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"In these 12 well-honed stories, Johnson zeroes in on the idealism and resiliency that make young people a powerful force in the world," wrote PW. "Her flavorful language will draw readers immediately into these brief, emotion-packed dramas." Ages 12-up. (Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's Jan. 1999 review of the hardcover edition: Twelve short stories, many that read like prose poems, make up this collection. They are obvious choices for teachers to read aloud in class. Some are only a few pages long; others the usual length of a short story: each one has a unique poignancy that lingers in the reader's mind. Johnson seems to always create such mixtures of whimsy, sadness, and quiet joy. These works in particular will move students, especially as they linger over the words and images, and many of the stories would be wonderful for class discussion. As is true of other Johnson works, the reader only has hints of the characters' African American heritage, with the cover art decisive. The stories tell of friendship and families, of lost souls and found souls. For instance, the first, "Sweetness," is about a ten-year-old girl who finds an abandoned baby in an old burned-out building. "She'd left the baby for a minute in the building and called her mom on a nearby pay phone, to tell her she'd found a baby. Her mom hung up on her. She went back to the building, but the afternoon got dark and nobody came. The baby stopped crying, smiled, and slept. Sweetness held the baby the whole night long." After Sweetness delivers the baby to a nearby police station, she robs a convenience store with a gun of her uncle's, and thus starts her life of crime. As you can see from that quote, there is a whole lot that is said, and a whole lot that is left unsaid, but the reader understands a great deal when he stops to think. Another story, "Souls," is about two friends who find an imaginative, though illegal, way to find good homes for animals. "Flying Away" is about adeaf child whose mother is restless, moving the family every few months crisscrossing the country. "Mama's hands danced to me. She told me about the mountains and oceans she wanted us to see. She told me about places that only a few people had been. She wanted us to see them. She told me it wasn't the place that was so important as the trip getting there. Me, her, Cookie, and Brother were special. Nobody like us in the whole world, she said. Special." KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 1998, Random House/Knopf, 106p, 19cm, 97-52097, $4.99. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Claire Rosser; July 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 4)

VOYA - Cindy Lombardo

What opportunities exist for teens to reach out to those in need? Johnson's short, compulsively readable tales (twelve in all) examine the poignancy of life and the ways in which we provide shelter, both physical and psychological, for one another. These vignettes-some merely anecdotes and others more fully developed-feature a panoply of quirky characters who leave the reader with an insight into the nature of love, friendship, and the challenge of living bravely in an often grim and uncaring world. Sweetness saves an abandoned baby at the age of ten, yet is dead from a police gunshot by fifteen. Star, an outrageous baby sitter complete with shaved head and pierced lip, transforms the household she works in. Although he is deaf, Victor knows intuitively when his mother is planning to pack up and move her family yet again in an unending search for a good home that leaves her children permanently uprooted and displaced. Self-styled animal activist Mick sees his thievery as "saving souls." Many of these stories are hard edged, peopled by characters whose bravado masks their yearning for safety and nurturing. A savvy teacher could use Johnson's work to spark spirited discussions on the topics of homelessness, attitudes toward the mentally disabled, and the impact that a seemingly insignificant action can have on the course of a life. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Broad general YA appeal, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Children's Literature - Leslie Hauschildt

Looking for something to grab those middle-school students who think they don't like to read? Well, "everybody's got a story" according to the girl who talks to the guy who collects empty egg cartons. There's Greg's friend Mick, who's likely going to be the next Dr. Doolittle but you never know if doing the deeds to get there may involve some jail time or being on a television talk show. And you might think you recognize Batgirl, the girl in Cleveland who will tell you how she got her name, but really likes hanging with her friend at the mall. This collection of short stories written in the first person will draw readers in, and give them the feeling that these are people they might really meet in the 'hood, at the mall or around the corner. Angela Johnson's Heaven has been given a Coretta Scott King Award , and Gone From Home is worthy of some awards as well. Absolutely top-notch!

Horn Book

The twelve short stories that compose this original collection are off- beat meditations on "the essence of life," filled with quirky characters and unexpected twists and turns of fate. Reminiscent of Tim Wynne-Jones's fine collections, these generous-spirited tales introduce Starr, the heavily pre-interviewed baby sitter who shows up her first day with shaven head and pierced lip, sporting a COOK THE RICH SLOWLY T-shirt, and whose outrageous behavior transforms her young charge; Sweetness, who, at ten, finds an abandoned baby and stays with it through the night ("She didn't know what made people do what they did. Nobody in the world should do something so sick as to leave a little baby alone") only to commit her first in a series of armed robberies an hour after she drops the baby at a police station; and Noel, who in "By the Time You Read This" writes what seems at first to be a suicide note but which is revealed to be a thank-you note to a beauty parlor. Throughout this remarkable collection, Johnson reflects on the human soul in all its variety, and in all its goodness. Despite the weightiness of her themes, Johnson, with her unconventional humor and lightness, burnishes each story so that the ordinary becomes something else entirely.

Kirkus Reviews

With her usual sensitivity to adolescent emotional landscapes fully evident in these 12 (11 new) short stories, Johnson (Humming Whispers, 1995, etc.) explores the notion of giving or receiving help in time of need. The help in these pages may be shelter, unquestioning friendship, or a comforting story; it comes from parents, peers, an unexpected source. Sometimes it doesn't come at all, as in the opener, "Sweetness," about a neglected child who can't get her church-focused mother's attention even by committing armed robbery. Several stories take surprising or humorous twists, such as "By The Time You Read This," which, until the laugh-out-loud ending, has all the earmarks of a suicide note. In others, children pursue or struggle to understand wayward parents or life-changing events. Ranging from anecdotes to novels-in-miniature, they are all written with an economy of expression that will appeal to less-practiced readers while still preciselyþbrilliantlyþconveying complex situations and responses. (Short stories. 11-15)