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Overview
But today I dream of falling...into the crowd of God-struck people. The pale leaves of their faces tilt up and their white limbs rise to catch me as I am passed among the river of their hands, one to another, am kept by them, am kept.-- from Walking on Air
It is the Depression in America, 1931. Twelve-year-old June is a tightrope walker. Performing in her preacher father's revival shows, June travels through cities, makeshift camps, carnivals, and freak shows. The family has no home, no money, no friends -- and faith that is getting thinner than the air upon which June walks. On her journey June examines her life and is torn between loyalty to her family and their religion, and the life she might have. She comes to understand that discovering what the world has in store for her will require facing old family secrets and making some gut-wrenching decisions.
Walking on Air is a stirring novel of self-examination, as June balances on a literal and figurative tightrope within the rich and tormented landscape of America during the Depression. Facing the problems of her day, June must use her wit, fire, and strong spirit in order to triumph.
In 1931, a young girl travels around the country performing on a tightrope during revival meetings held by her father, and seeking her own answers about God, her family, and her life of poverty and homelessness.
Synopsis
But today I dream of falling...into the crowd of God-struck people. The pale leaves of their faces tilt up and their white limbs rise to catch me as I am passed among the river of their hands, one to another, am kept by them, am kept.
-- from Walking on Air
It is the Depression in America, 1931. Twelve-year-old June is a tightrope walker. Performing in her preacher father's revival shows, June travels through cities, makeshift camps, carnivals, and freak shows. The family has no home, no money, no friends -- and faith that is getting thinner than the air upon which June walks. On her journey June examines her life and is torn between loyalty to her family and their religion, and the life she might have. She comes to understand that discovering what the world has in store for her will require facing old family secrets and making some gut-wrenching decisions.
Walking on Air is a stirring novel of self-examination, as June balances on a literal and figurative tightrope within the rich and tormented landscape of America during the Depression. Facing the problems of her day, June must use her wit, fire, and strong spirit in order to triumph.
Publishers Weekly
Setting her novel in 1931, Easton (The Life History of a Star) crafts a memorable heroine in narrator June, daughter of a traveling preacher-cum-con artist. June walks a figurative and literal tightrope as she performs in her father's revival show but also catches him spending the collection box money. His hypocrisies go much further: he forbids June to attend school ("What's she gonna learn? That man is descended from apes?" he says derisively) yet strategically outfits her in a "scant" costume for her act. When a past crime catches up with him and lands him in jail for five months, June, her mother and the family's on-again, off-again assistant, the mute Rhett, finally enjoy some stability (and give readers some pretty obvious clues as to Rhett's true identity). Well researched Depression-era details heighten the desperation of June's dysfunctional, secret-ridden family and their transient, hand-to-mouth existence, which includes a stint in a Hooverville. Throughout, June muses on the plights of women in the Bible, the contradictions within her father's brand of religion, the flawed people whom she has met while traveling in carnivals and sideshows, and she ends up forging a faith of her own. The plot accelerates too abruptly from grimness to joy as it nears the conclusion, but along the way Easton ably establishes a complex, highly charged atmosphere and mediates it with sympathy and intelligence. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Setting her novel in 1931, Easton (The Life History of a Star) crafts a memorable heroine in narrator June, daughter of a traveling preacher-cum-con artist. June walks a figurative and literal tightrope as she performs in her father's revival show but also catches him spending the collection box money. His hypocrisies go much further: he forbids June to attend school ("What's she gonna learn? That man is descended from apes?" he says derisively) yet strategically outfits her in a "scant" costume for her act. When a past crime catches up with him and lands him in jail for five months, June, her mother and the family's on-again, off-again assistant, the mute Rhett, finally enjoy some stability (and give readers some pretty obvious clues as to Rhett's true identity). Well researched Depression-era details heighten the desperation of June's dysfunctional, secret-ridden family and their transient, hand-to-mouth existence, which includes a stint in a Hooverville. Throughout, June muses on the plights of women in the Bible, the contradictions within her father's brand of religion, the flawed people whom she has met while traveling in carnivals and sideshows, and she ends up forging a faith of her own. The plot accelerates too abruptly from grimness to joy as it nears the conclusion, but along the way Easton ably establishes a complex, highly charged atmosphere and mediates it with sympathy and intelligence. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
June walks the tightrope to attract attention for her father, a traveling preacher. Her family drives across the country seeking converts and spare change. Silent Rhett comes along, joining June and her mother and father in their broken down car. They find it difficult to attract a paying audience; it is the Depression, so few have change to spare. In Detroit, June gets a break from the dreaded tightrope act when her father spends six months in jail. It's a dream come true for June: a home, the chance to attend school, even friends. With her father in jail, folks just assume Rhett is her dad, and June begins to question the relationship between Rhett and her mother. However, once June's dad is sprung from jail, things go back to normal—only worse. June must make some choices about her life, and where it will take her. She knows she prefers her feet planted firmly on the ground. A well-written, character driven story, the ending may strike some readers as a fairy tale conclusion, but those are June's favorite stories, from the only book she has ever owned besides a Bible. 2004, Margaret K McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster, Ages 12 to 16.—Mary Loftus
VOYA
Set in the early days of the Great Depression, this novel about a young adolescent girl whose father is an evangelistic preacher seesaws from hopeful to utterly depressing. Far from being cruel, June's father is an authoritative and inflexible man who drags his family from one town to another, putting on religious "shows" in which June performs aerial tricks on a taut rope before her father preaches. The few coins that they collect from the crowd are their only means of survival. June has never been allowed to attend school, but she has been taught to read the Bible and can quote most of it from memory. Her outlook on life and the people she meets in her travels are constantly colored by various Biblical stories. She understands the wisdom of Solomon, the faith of Job, and the loyalty of Ruth. When her father is imprisoned in Detroit for extortion, June and her mother rent a small house in the country, and for one glorious spring, June attends school, makes friends, and helps her mother plant a garden. Pa's return yanks them back to his reality, and they hit the road again. The despair that follows is palpable. Ultimately June's life becomes stable as she goes to live with her natural father and the grandmother whom she has never known. A fine example of realistic fiction, this novel is both tragically sad and tinged with possibility. It would be very useful as supplemental reading for a study of the Great Depression. VOYA Codes 4Q 3P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2004, Margaret K. McElderry/S & S, 240p., Ages 11 to 15.—Leslie Carter
KLIATT
Easton, author of The Life History of a Star, gives us the story of an amazingly precocious 12-year-old girl who is living an unusual life. It is 1931, and the economy is terrible in the US during the Great Depression as June and her parents, with a non-speaking hired man, Rhett, travel around trying to get some money together by holding revival meetings. Pa is the preacher, but June is the highlight, because she "walks on air" on a tightrope, drawing the attention of the audience. There is never much money and Pa is bitter and angry. June has her own understanding of God, and much of her narrative is a telling of the Bible stories that strike her fancy. She is mostly fascinated by how much jealousy and deception are in the stories—from Cain murdering his brother, to Jacob and Rebecca deceiving Isaac to steal Esau's birthright, to the "greatest deception" of all, Judas betraying Jesus. June returns frequently to the Bible stories, because she hasn't gone to school and the Bible is her main resource for learning about the world. Readers who are familiar with the stories will get a better understanding of June and the way her mind works than readers who don't know what she is talking about. This struggling little family, dysfunctional to say the least, has its happy times, especially when Pa is put into jail for six months or so, and June and her Ma and the quiet Rhett rent an old house. June is able to attend school and make some friends. As soon as Pa gets out, however, he restlessly wants them to move on. When Ma gets very ill, she confides in June that Rhett is her real father, that she deceived Pa when they married and he believes that June is his daughter. Later they areseparated, with Ma put into a convent's hospice to recuperate from what seems to be tuberculoses, and June is in an orphanage on the edge of a red-light district. One day she is rescued. The silent Rhett now has the courage to claim her as his own child and takes her to live in Providence, Rhode Island, with his mother, June's grandmother. Finally, June will be nurtured and allowed to learn and use her fine mind. And instead of having to listen to endless diatribes about an angry, judgmental God, June is now able to "find God in my grandma's smile or in Rhett's voice." A quirky, unusual story about a memorable girl. KLIATT Codes: J—Recommended for junior high school students. 2004, Simon & Schuster, 233p., Ages 12 to 15.—Claire Rosser