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    Dicey's Song
    Dicey's Song
    Dicey's Song
    Audiobook9 hours

    Dicey's Song

    Written by Cynthia Voigt

    Narrated by Barbara Caruso

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Newbery-winning novel in Cynthia Voigt’s timeless series is repackaged with a modern look.

    When Momma abandoned Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings in a mall parking lot and was later traced to an asylum where she lay unrecognizing, unknowing, she left her four children no choice but to get on by themselves. They set off alone on foot over hundreds of miles until they finally found someone to take them in.

    Gram’s rundown farm isn’t perfect, but they can stay together as a family—which is all Dicey really wanted.

    But after watching over the others for so long, it’s hard for Dicey to know what to do now. Her own identity has been so wrapped up in being the caretaker, navigator, penny counter, and decision maker that she’s not sure how to let go of some responsibilities while still keeping a sense of herself. But when the past comes back with devastating force, Dicey sees just how necessary—and painful—letting go can be.

    ALA Newbery Medal • ALA Notable Children's Books • USA Children's Books of International Interest • CBC/NCSS Notable Children's Book in Social Studies • Booklist Best Of 80s • Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor Book
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 28, 2008
    ISBN9781436178860
    Author

    Cynthia Voigt

    Cynthia Voigt is the Newbery Medal- and Newbery Honor–winning author of more than twenty books, including Dicey’s Song and A Solitary Blue. She is also the author of Little Bird, illustrated by Newbery Medal–winning author Lynne Rae Perkins. She lives in Maine. 

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    Reviews for Dicey's Song

    4.5/5

    33 ratings21 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This heart-warming sequel picks up right where Homecoming left off. The Tillerman kids have settled in with Gram. They're starting school and gradually learning to open up to others, make new friends, and come to terms with their mom's desertion the previous summer. Even Gram finds herself reconciling with her feelings concerning her own children.
    • 3/5
      Barbara Caruso's lovely narration brought some depth to these characters- made the prickly Tillerman women a little more accessible. I liked the story, I enjoyed listening to it after having read it some time ago, but it's still a sad story.
    • 4/5
      Dicey is such an interesting character - self-assured, strong, smart. This book is full of people learning to trust each other, to reach out and not give up on relationships. There is grief but there is also grace in this story.
    • 4/5
      I avoided this book for a long time because I had heard it was too upsetting for children. Yes, it is a sad book. And it might be too sad for some children. But there are lots and lots of children who would like to hear this story.Dicey and her three siblings have come to live with their grandmother. Their mother is in a mental hospital; their father skipped out before Dicey’s youngest brother, Sammy, was born.There are lots of problems to overcome. Dicey’s sister, Maybeth, isn’t learning like she should in school. James, Dicey’s brother, hides how smart he is in order to fit in. Sammy gets into fights. People talk about and tease the children about Gram. Dicey, like Gram, has learned to feign indifference. The whole Tillerman clan slowly works on all these problems, talking together, singing together, making new friends, working, building a boat. Now I’m anxious to see what my readers of realistic fiction at school think of this book.
    • 4/5
      Book Two of the Tillerman Cycle, which follows Dicey, her siblings, and Gram as they sort out how to be a family together and deal with the difficulties life keeps throwing at them (as life is wont to do). Simply excellent. If not quite as bowl-you-over brilliant as Homecoming, still a worthy follow-up and deserving of many rereads. Recommended to everyone.
    • 5/5
      In Homecoming, brave, resourceful Dicey, brainy James, sweet Maybeth, and stubborn Sammy made their way to a place that they all can call home. In Dicey's Song, the children are learning their way in a new place, and it's not an easy transition for any of them. And then, of course, there's Momma, who is at a hospital far away in New England, who may never get better. Dicey and her siblings have found a home, but now they have to find a way to be, to belong.I've loved these books for years. The story of the Tillerman family is so rich, so bittersweet. Voigt just nails it on so many levels: the interactions between the characters, the way she describes the setting, the descriptions of food and music and simple pleasures. These are books that I can revisit again and again.
    • 4/5
      The four Tillerman children and their Gram grow into a family as the children mature, and Gram gives up some of her prickliness. Themes of reaching out and letting go and aloneness.
    • 5/5
      I have read this book over 20 times. Dicey's resiliant character and perserverence inspires me to keep on keeping on.
    • 4/5
      I love the first book, and I still think the first is the best of the series, still.. I admire the author for the delicate intricacies she has added to Dicey's family life with her grandmother. I love the sad ending, and learn that in life, just like in Dicey's, we have to learn to let go of the people of the past, as well as reach out to others in present. Lovely story for all ages :)
    • 3/5
      Dicey’s Song, the second installment in the Tillerman series, tells the story of the four Tillerman children’s adjustment to their new life living with their widowed grandmother, Abigail Tillerman, whom they just met. In the previous book, Homecoming, the children were abandoned by their mother who was suffering from mental illness and this story picks up where Homecoming leaves off and focuses on the eldest, Dicey, and her struggles to find acceptance and security. I was drawn to the author’s description of Dicey’s emotional struggle with allowing the grandmother to become the primary caretaker of her siblings, which had been Dicey’s job for so long. Classroom extensions include having the students to write an essay explaining the significance of the book’s title, Dicey’s Song. Another extension would be to use words from the book as the vocabulary words of the week.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent example of realistic fiction. It is set in nearly present day. It is an authentic and realistic look at Dicey, a 13 year old girl who is coming of age at a time in her life when she is trying to take responsibility for her siblings, work with her grandma in raising them and dealing with her mother slowly dying. The reader comes to know Dicey really well as we learn about her attitudes, loves, hates, concerns, worries, friends, family and all the ins and outs of her life. Appropriate Age: Intermediate, Middle School
    • 5/5
      I thought Homecoming was a little better, but this book was pretty good. I love all of cynthia Voigt's books, and I hope to read all of them. I cried when Momma died, but the kids made it through.
    • 5/5
      I am in love with this book! It is so good. When you read this book, you realize things you've never thought about before. This is by far, one of my favorite reads.
    • 5/5
      The four Tillerman children, (feisty Sammy, sweet and slow Maybeth, brainy James, and relentlessly determined Dicey) are figuring out how to live with their odd and ornery Gram, who is adopting them. Dicey has never really had friends, and finds it difficult when a big, effervescent black girl, Mina, is determined to make friends with her, and also when a slightly older boy she sees after school, develops a crush on her. Maybeth struggles to learn math and reading, but picks up piano brilliantly, under the tutelage of Mr. Lingerle, a kind and obese music teacher who befriends the family. Towards the end, Gram gets word from Boston about the children's mother, who has been in a state mental hospital in a vegetative state, and she packs up Dicey and takes off to the hospital. The children's mother is dying.
    • 4/5
      This is the best Newbery I've read in a while. I really liked the characters and the story was engaging. Not much else to say.
    • 4/5
      Lots of wisdom here for adults. Gram says, "I married John, and that wasn't a mistake. But the way we stayed married, the way we lived, there were lots of mistakes. He was a stiff and proud man, John----a hard man. I stuck by him. But I got to thinking, after he died, whether there weren't things I should have done. He wasn't happy to be himself. And I just let him be. I let the children go away from him And from me. I got to thinking----when it was too late---you have to reach out to people. To your family too. You can't just let them sit there, you should put your hand out. If they slap it back, well you reach out again if you care enough. If you don't care enough, you forget about them if you can." Chapter 7"I might have learned to enjoy him, if I'd tried. I thought I was trying, but maybe I wasn't. But I've let go of that grief and that anger." (Chapter 11)
    • 4/5
      I started this book enjoying the way Voigt describes Dicey's internal feelings and complex, somewhat tense scenes. By the end, I was frustrated with the references to the earlier book, the sentence fragments, and the wordy descriptions that left my eyes swimming. Overall, I didn't connect with Dicey's struggles in a way I should have to really enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful book. Great for young readers. Looking forward to reading others in this series
    • 5/5
      This is a continuation of Homecoming; we see Dicey and her siblings adapting to life at their grandmother's and at school, watch them learn about being themselves and holding on and letting go and growing up. It sounds cheesy when I talk about it. It's not. See my review of Homecoming for my thoughts on this series in general.
    • 3/5
      This is the immediate sequel to Voigt's other novel, The Homecoming. The Homecoming was a superb novel about an abandoned group of siblings searching for a home. Unfortunately, possibly due to my high expectations set by the first book, I found this sequel to be a bit lacking. (It confuses me that this book was highly-lauded and award winning. I can't explain that.)The main problem with this book is that it simply didn't have much of a plot. The children experience some difficulty settling into their new life.... and that's about the extent of it. Some minor drama develops a bit of the way down the line - but nothing that leaves you with a sense that it won't be easily resolved or dealt with.I won't tell you not to read this book, especially not if you enjoyed the first one and are interested in finding out what happened to the characters. However, don't expect another Homecoming. This isn't a full-fledged story, it's a revisiting. A "where are they now". Mildly entertaining, but not a great book.
    • 3/5
      Dicey's Song roll along slowly, almost serenely, though turmoil bubbles below the surface. The story of one family's journey to find themselves, this novel was full of appropriate contradictions. The story moved slowly, though the character's metamorphoses were rapid. It was a story about letting go, but even more so about holding on. The characters were short and walled-off, yet open and accessible. Though there is quite a bit of confusion to get past in order to get into the story, the reader ends up learning that that confusion is necessary--vital, even. You'll find yourself appreciating almost everything about this book, and perhaps even wishing there were more stories which followed the Tillerman's throughout their lives.