Tiger eyes

Review by Booklist Review

When Davey Wexler's father dies in her arms after being shot by robbers at his 7-11 store, she is left stunned, lonely, and angry. Her family moves to New Mexico where Davey meets a young man who helps her cope with her father's death. Blume skillfully deals with the stages of grief and provides a story line that will evoke much class discussion.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-The most remarkable thing about Judy Blume's book (Atheneum, 1982) is how well it has stood the test of time-it's as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. This is the story of 15-year-old Davey who finds her father shot during a hold-up in his store. Davey and her mother have trouble coping with their violent loss, but when Davey begins to have panic attacks in school, her mother decides to move the family temporarily to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to stay with relatives. Living with her overly strict aunt and uncle makes Davey angry. When her mother starts dating, Davey is furious that her father could be forgotten so swiftly. Davey and her mother are both deep in the grieving process but working through it in very different ways. Too young to work, Davey volunteers at the hospital where she meets an elderly man dying of cancer. When she meets the man's son, their friendship and common sense of loss helps Davey begin to heal. Emma Galvin's narration perfectly voices Davey's escalating emotions and teen angst. A well-told and well-performed story.-Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Blume's latest novel begins like many of her personalized, single-problem scenarios, with 15-year-old Davey's father shot to death by robbers at his 7-Eleven store in Atlantic City. Davey can't function for weeks, and it is largely for her that her emotionally and financially stranded mother accepts shelter in Los Alamos with kind Aunt Bitsy and her physicist-husband Walter. Once there, Davey's outsider reactions to Bitsy, Walter, and Los Alamos add dimension to her grief and her recovery. True, we experience no culture shock too strong for Blume's smooth readability; there is nothing subtle about the irony of Bomb City's bland security and weapons designer Waiter's overprotective posture; and Waiter's elitist ugliness is overdone in one violent confrontation with Davey. Also, Davey's chaste but warm relationship with a nice young man she meets in the canyon, plus the coincidence of his father's dying at the hospital where Davey volunteers as a candy-striper, are on the cute romantic level. Nevertheless Davey's lonely struggle to come to terms with the killing, her everyday conflicts with her well-meaning but aggravating aunt and uncle, her impatience with her mother, who finally breaks down and then withdraws from the family, her scorn for the ""nerd"" physicist Mom dates on her way to recovery, her concern for a high-status but alcoholic school friend, and her assessment of the social structure at the Los Alamos high school--all this takes on a poignancy and a visible edge we wouldn't see had Davey (or Blume) remained in New Jersey. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One One It is the morning of the funeral and I am tearing my room apart, trying to find the right kind of shoes to wear. But all I come up with are my Adidas, which have holes in the toes, and a pair of flip-flops. I can't find my clogs anywhere. I think I packed them away with my winter clothes in a box in the attic. My mother is growing more impatient by the second and tells me to borrow a pair of her shoes. I look in her closet and choose a pair with three-inch heels and ankle straps. I almost trip going down the outside stairs. My little brother, Jason, says, "Watch it, stupid." But he says it very quietly, almost in a whisper. Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. "Be careful, Davey." At the cemetery people are fanning themselves. We are in the midst of the longest heat wave Atlantic City has seen in twenty-five years. It is 96 degrees at ten. I think about how good it would feel to walk along the beach, in the wet sand, with the ocean lapping at my feet. Two days ago I'd stayed in the water so long my fingers and toes had wrinkled and Hugh had called me Pruney. Hugh. I see him as we walk through the cemetery to the gravesite. He is standing off to one side, by himself, cracking his knuckles, the way he does when he's thinking hard. His hair is so sun-bleached it looks almost white. Maybe I notice because it is parted on the side and carefully brushed, instead of hanging in his face, the way it usually does. Our eyes meet, but we don't speak. I bite my lower lip so hard I taste blood. At the grave, I stand on one side of my mother and Jason stands on the other. I feel the sweat trickling down inside my blouse, making a little pool in my bra. My aunt and uncle, who flew in from New Mexico last night, stand behind me. I have seen them only one other time in my life, when my grandmother died. But I was only five then and wasn't allowed to go to her funeral. I remember how I'd cried that morning, not because my grandmother had died, but because I wanted to ride in the shiny black car with the rest of the family, instead of staying at home with a neighbor, who tried to feed me an apricot jelly sandwich. This time I haven't cried at all. Now I hear my aunt making small gasping sounds, then blowing her nose. I hear my uncle whispering to her but I can't make out his words. I feel their breath on the back of my neck and move closer to my mother. Jason clings to Mom's hand and keeps glancing at her, then at me. My mother looks straight ahead. She doesn't even wipe away the tears that are rolling down her cheeks. I've never felt so alone in my life. I shift from one foot to the other because my mother's shoes are too tight and my feet hurt. I concentrate on the pain, and the blisters that are forming on my little toes, because that way I don't have to think about the coffin that is being lowered into the ground. Or that my father's body is inside it. Excerpted from Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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