Lucy Forever and Miss Rosetree, Shrinks - Softcover

Grade 4-7 Shreve's intent is unclear here: if this is meant to be a spoof on psychiatry it is unsuccessful because it makes light of child abuse; if it is meant to be taken seriously, it fails because of uninvolved writing, poor plotting, and stereotyped characters. Sixth-grade Lucy Childs, daughter of a child psychiatrist, and her best friend play amateur analyst, inventing people with problems and making up solutions. When a mute four-year-old girl from the county orphan home wanders from Dr. Childs' office into the girls' play office, Lucy is determined to find out why the child refuses to talk and how she got the slash on her throat. Lucy discovers that the nurse at the home, Miss Brill, is abusing the children; Miss Brill is arrested; and Lucy's parents agree to adopt Cinder. The writing is cold, almost frighteningly so, and the light-handed treatment of an abused child is chilling: ``Miss Brill hit the child on the head, and Cinder fell over like a rag doll in the corner of the kitchen.'' Adults are either viciously evil, insensitive, or stupid. Dr. Childs sees little else around himparticularly the fact that his only child is a lonely child, crying for help, while he and her ditsy mother (``Mrs. Child's brain was always half absent'') take long day trips together. Other adult characters fare no better, particularly Lucy's piano teacher, who knows about events at the orphanage but who has been bribed to secrecy. There are too many holes here, too many unexplained motives, and too little sensitivity to the subject to make this work.Trev Jones, ``School Library Journal''
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

They're not actually shrinks, only two imaginative sixth-graders who pattern their "practice" on that of Lucy Forever's child-psychiatrist father. The girls befriend a young patient of the doctor'sbreaking one of his cardinal ruleswhen they sense a connection between her muteness and the bright red scar across her throat. Lucy Forever, undeterred by parental admonitions and a growing realization of the danger she is in, keeps looking for the reason for the girl's terrorand finds it. With a wonderful ear for the dialogue of children and the patterns of their most serious play, Shreve creates realistic, memorable characters. She moves easily from a child's make-believe world to the nightmare of an orphanage run by a psychotic child-abuser. A satisfying and deftly written story. Ages 10-12.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.