JUST DANCE

A gifted wordsmith wonders if her opera-singer mom misses her career.

Fourth-grader Sylvie Bloom lives with her parents and younger brother on a Wyoming farm. Her mother was once an internationally renowned soprano but now sings only to cows, chickens, and sheep. This summer, talented Sylvie is assigned by her teacher to compose a daily column about local events for the town newspaper, employing any writing style she chooses. Through her warm, witty, and sharply observed comments and poetry, Sylvie affects neighbors’ lives and helps bring about important changes in her community. Meanwhile, an invitation for the whole family from a famous tenor, mom’s former duet partner, to his upcoming concert makes Sylvie worry that her mother unwillingly sacrificed her career for her kids and regrets abandoning her glamorous past. Hints from several friendly, wise adults that she already understands her mother’s motives but hasn’t yet acknowledged them to herself make Sylvie uneasy. This is a sweet, folksy, leisurely paced novel with gentle humor about family closeness and a young girl who discovers that practicing and sharing one’s talents is actually quite simple. Characters default to white. MacLachlan’s economic writing is sure and knowing, and her characters are likable and fully realized. Some readers may wonder, however, why it seemingly never before occurred to Sylvie just to ask her mother about her decision to forgo the stage.

A quiet tale about finding your own voice.