Waiting for Normal

Gr 6-8 A story centered around loss, heartbreak, abandonment, and new beginnings. Although Dwight is no longer Addie's stepfather due to his divorce from her mother, the two still share an unbreakable bond. Dwight secures a trailer for Addie and her mother in an unremarkable part of Schenectady, NY. Mommers sleeps during the day and leaves Addie at night to pursue "business" interests with her new boyfriend. Meanwhile, Dwight has moved to Lake George with Addie's half sisters, for whom he was awarded custody. Despite the many upheavals in her young life, Addie adjusts as well as she can. She participates in the school orchestra, despite the fact that her dyslexia makes learning the music challenging. Her mother's antipathy toward Dwight doesn't prevent her from allowing Addie to visit him and her sisters during school breaks, during which she gets a taste of normalcy. However, the woman's irresponsibility, inability to tell the truth, and frequent absences, often for days at a time, put Addie in danger. Connor has created a winning and positive father-figure/daughter relationship between Dwight and Addie. She introduces serious topics such as cancer, neglect, and learning disabilities without sensationalizing or trivializing the subjects. Although Mommers is clearly an unfit parent, Connor does show believable instances of her love for her children, juxtaposed with scenes of embarrassingly childish behavior and cutting remarks."Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton, VA" Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Connor ("Dead on Town Line") treats the subject of child neglect with honesty and grace in this poignant story. Addie's stepfather, Dwight, has always been the responsible one in the family. But after he and her mother divorce, and he gets custody of Addie's two younger half-sisters, it's up to Addie, a sixth-grader, to keep order in the tiny trailer that Dwight has found for Addie and her mother. While her mother disappears for days at a time with her new boyfriend, Addie cultivates friendships with people she meets at a neighboring convenience store, but the affection she receives from others doesn't compensate for the absence of love in her home. Addie works hard to fill the void her volatile mother creates, and Addie's attempts to make things normal result in some of the most moving scenes: she keeps the cabinets full by putting empty boxes of food on the shelf for show. In such moments Connor shows both the extent to which Addie has been abandoned and just how resilient and resourceful she is. Characters as persuasively optimistic as Addie are rare, and readers will gravitate to her. Ages 10-up. "(Feb.)" Copyright 2008 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

"Connor convincingly portray's Addie's beyond-her-years resourcefulness and the opposing feelings that drive her to protect the life she has while longing to be a permanent part of the 'normal' home her sisters occupy with her stepfather."—The Horn Book