THUMBELINA: A Novel

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Summary: WELL DONE KOENIG!
Review: ON MY WAY TO LONDON, A REFRESHING PASSENGER ON THE PLANE NEXT TO ME FILLED MY MIND WITH A DELIGHTFUL, PASSIONATE CHARACTER OF A BOOK SHE WAS WORKING ON. FOR YEARS TO COME I ALWAYS REMEMBERED THE CHARACTER THUMBILINA AND HER JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE. THEN RECENTLY I REMEMBERED THAT THE BOOK SHOULD BE PUBLISHED BY NOW. I RAN TO THE CLOSEST BOOKSTORE, AND TO MY SUPRISE THUMBILINA WAS ALIVE! I WAS SO EXCITED TO READ ABOUT HER, I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. HOW PROUD I WAS OF MY OLD TRAVELING PARTNER, AS WELL AS FOR THE CHARACTER THUMBILINA AND HER JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE. THUMBILA HAS A REFRESHING, HONEST LOVE IN HER AND I COULDN'T WAIT TO PASS THE BOOK ALONG TO OTHERS. EVERY MONTH I HAVE SAVED MONEY TO BUY A COPY TO SOMEONE I KNOW. HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYS IT AS MUCH AS I DID.

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Summary: Review from Publishers Weekly - November 9, 1998
Review: The ingenuous, plainspoken voice of its eponymous 14-year-old narrator renders Koenig's debut a compulsively readable and often moving work. As the novel opens, Thumbelina--ironically named, at six feet tall, with thick glasses and "yellow hair that looks like pee and hangs down into the back pockets of my jeans"--has just become an orphan, her unmarried mother, Angelica, having driven her car into a duck pond near their house in Tacoma, Washington. Thumbelina soon finds herself in a foster home where she meets a confidante, Myrna, streetwise and pregnant, who immediately identifies a complication Thumbelina is not yet aware of: Thumbelina is pregnant, too. "A fish this stupid is a fish I got a soft spot for," Thumbelina, resolved to keep her baby, announces to the doctor. Rather than repeat eighth grade, the two teens decide to run away, moving in with Myrna's sister and briefly working as strippers. During the course of this account of nine months in her life, Thumbelina parcels out pieces of her past in sassy, gutsy prose: her love/hate relationship with Angelica and both mother and daughter's problems, with Angelica's abusive, possibly gay boyfriend Lester. Using starkly evocative language and themes that will remind readers of the work of Dorothy Allison and Elizabeth Berg, Koenig builds narrative suspense in small increments. One never knows when the second shoe is going to drop on Thumbelina's head, but it does. As Thumbelina faces very adult concerns--the possibility of having contracted AIDS and the prospect of putting the "fish" up for adoption--readers will find themselves deeply affected by her heart-wrenching saga.

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Summary: Incredibly powerful and beautifully written
Review: This book is by for one of the most amazing novels I have ever read. It was very true-to-life, and the character was more realized and developed than I have seen in a long time. I found myself being drawn into a web of reality, and I felt like i knew the main character, Thumbelina, myself. It touched my soul so deeply that it will remain a part of me all my life. I have read this book too many times to count, and I recommend that you read it as well. It is one story that you will not soon forget.

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly powerful and beautifully written
Review: This book is by for one of the most amazing novels I have ever read. It was very true-to-life, and the character was more realized and developed than I have seen in a long time. I found myself being drawn into a web of reality, and I felt like i knew the main character, Thumbelina, myself. It touched my soul so deeply that it will remain a part of me all my life. I have read this book too many times to count, and I recommend that you read it as well. It is one story that you will not soon forget.

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Summary: Moving, Touching, and absolutely fabulous!
Review: This book is so fresh and engaging. The characters are so well developed that I feel as if I have been inside of them. I would love it if the author wrote another book, soon! There are a zillion beautiful passages. Koenig is majorly talented and I am a forever fan!

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Summary: about a girl...
Review: This is one of those books that would appeal to both teenagers and adults. Thumbelina has a silly name and long blonde hair. Her less-than-perfect mother dies unexpectedly, and after she goes to a foster home, she teams up with another sassy youngster, a girl named Myrna who has orange curls. Together, they try to make it out in the world. This is a sad novel that draws you in until the last page. Though the lack of quotation marks and the slow plot development make the novel a little clunky at times, Thumbelina and Myrna are such fascinating characters that it doesn't matter.

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Summary: Thumbelina
Review: This was one of the most consuming books that I've read in a long time. The voice is so pure and authentic and the story so engrossing that I read the entire book in one day. The only down side is that it was the author's first book so I can't go right out and by something else by her. It's rare to find a book written from the perspective of an adolescent that isn't written with a typical white middle class setting. I think this should be on every High School's summer reading list.

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Summary: A heart wrenching book
Review: Thumbelina is possibly one of my favorite books, with a heroine who is one not of the classic type, considering she is 6 feet tall, had a mother who commited suicide in a duck pond,and even tried exotic dancing. Wonderfully written, I'm glad I got it.