Karen Harrington (1) (1967–)

When Sarah Nelson was two years old her mother tried to drown her. Luckily the drowning didn’t take, unfortunately, her twin brother Simon wasn’t so lucky. In Sure Signs of Crazy we spend Sarah’s twelfth summer with her.

Sarah’s mother is now in a hospital for the criminally insane. Sarah lives with her father, and this summer he is letting her stay at home instead of shipping her off to her grandparents. Sarah and her father have moved around a lot, always trying to avoid being recognized. They both have their scars from their traumatic past, her father drinks too much and Sarah is constantly worried that she too will go crazy one day. Sarah is a very bright girl, and one of her hobbies is to collect her favorite words and find places to use them and she writes engaging letters to Atticus Finch, the father from To Kill A Mockingbird. This summer will be pivotal in Sarah’s life as she experiences her first big crush, becomes a woman, finds the courage to tell her alcoholic father how she really feels, and takes some big steps toward understanding what happened to her family ten years ago.

The book is aimed at eleven to thirteen year old children so is simplified somewhat but the author is well able to express the difficulties that Sarah encounters in a way that is understandable. Sarah is a wonderful character, she is smart, observant yet still naive. As the book is aimed at children, one can’t help but applaud how the author manages to explore how Sarah works through her anger and fears. Sure Signs of Crazy is full of empathy and humor, resulting in an engaging and hopeful story.… (mais)

children's middlegrade fiction/school stories. This story about fitting in and standing up to fears has a more diverse cast than usual (a Muslim girl, a formerly-fat Hispanic, an agoraphobic mom; the main character is red-haired). For some reason the girl is obsessed with visiting France, which makes as much sense as anything kids get obsessed with, but it feels a little trite. I also didn't care for the dad-in-hospital-after-falling-out-of-tree-concussion subplot, having known way too many kids who have lost parents to various illnesses, but that could just be me.… (mais)