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    Loose Threads
    Loose Threads
    Loose Threads
    Ebook369 pages1 hour

    Loose Threads

    By Lorie Ann Grover

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Seventh grader Kay Garber’s happy home is made up of four generations of women: Great Gran Eula; Grandma Margie; Kay’s mother, Karine; and Kay. But on the evening Grandma Margie tells her family she has a lump in her breast, Kay’s world is changed forever.

    Struggling with issues of popularity in junior high school, trying to understand her too-perfect mother, dealing with her feelings about friends, and coming to terms with Grandma Margie’s cancer diagnosis and illness, Kay is awhirl with questions that have no easy answers. But Kay is a survivor, and as she journeys through these difficult months she comes to a new understanding of the complexities and importance of faith and family.

    Told through forthright and perceptive poems in Kay’s own voice, Loose Threads reverberates with emotion and depth and will leave no reader untouched.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMargaret K. McElderry Books
    Release dateFeb 26, 2013
    ISBN9781439131985
    Loose Threads
    Author

    Lorie Ann Grover

    Lorie Ann Grover is the author of young adult novels including Hit, which Hypable calls “a powerful book about tragedy and recovery which shows you both sides of the story, for better or worse.” She has authored Loose Threads, a Booklist Top 10 Youth First Novel, and On Pointe, a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year. As a literacy advocate, she is a co-founder of readergirlz, which was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading Prize.   

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    Reviews for Loose Threads

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Wow this story was intense. I liked the poems without form. It was nice to feel the back and forth of the poetry. It was a rough topic to tackle.
    • 4/5
      Loose Threads is Lorie Ann Grover's first book. It is a story told in poems about breast cancer and the lives it touches. Each relatively short poem has an underlined heading that keeps the plot moving forward. Some poems are wistful and focus on a truth that the main character, thirteen year-old Kay, comes to understand. Other poems are about the mundane things in life like cockroaches in the kitchen or the pleasure of watching a TV show or eating in the school cafeteria. It is a story that works on several levels: a girl coming of age, a family in crisis, the devastation of breast cancer, and the continuity of life and familial love. It is a quick 300 pages that holds interest primarily due to the believability of the characters.

    Book preview

    Loose Threads - Lorie Ann Grover

    Contents

    M*A*S*H

    What They Know

    Breaking the Silence

    Other Stuff

    What to Do

    Good Night

    Bottles and Beauty

    The Drawer

    The Phone

    2:00 AM.

    We’ve Lost

    Comfort

    Fine

    It Seems Like

    One Thing I Remember

    Work

    Mosquitoes

    The Bus

    Bites

    Poison

    Science

    The Project

    Study Hall

    The Lunchroom

    Real Stuff

    Routine

    Checking

    The Biopsy Appointment

    The Porch

    Everyone Knows

    Talking with Deb and Sheray

    Before School

    A Good Day

    After School

    The Roach Mobile

    Rules in Junior High

    Way Easier

    Memorizing

    Sunday Morning

    Sunday Evening

    Scuttling

    The Biopsy

    The Water Fountain

    Safer

    Pre-algebra

    A Little Incision

    Questions

    She’s Up

    Waiting

    Not that Bad

    Researching

    What I See

    The First Knitting Lesson

    Mistakes

    Study Hall

    Why?

    Tracing

    Favorite Pastime

    Making Chicken Pot Pie

    Click

    Telling

    Sweetness

    Silently

    Fault

    Choices

    Looking out the Window

    Can’t

    The Next Second

    Limp

    Preparation

    Looking

    Suspicious

    The Cool Cloud

    Mom and Me Love Bowling

    Time

    Peach

    A Nap

    Questions

    So Unbelievable

    Never Ever Hear

    Hairdos

    Gum

    Decision

    Nightmare

    This Morning

    Chatter

    The Cafeteria

    In the Crowded Hall

    PE

    We Hate It

    Period

    Another Nightmare

    Thmp

    The Surgery

    Recovery

    For Her

    Tangy Sweet

    Aren’t Saying It

    She’s Home

    The Two of Them

    Order

    The Recovery

    Super Serious

    Hug

    They All

    Time

    Friends

    Hit the Showers, Ladies

    Her Friends

    Warrior

    On the Way to the Diner

    One Evening

    Mean

    Squeezed

    Wiggly Jiggly Prostheses

    Two Bumps

    Sleepover

    Just in Case

    The Roach

    Radiation

    Tired

    The Waiting Room

    Chemo

    Between Treatments

    Hiding

    A Whole Lot Harder

    Eat

    Pep Rally

    Weeks

    Up with Grandma Margie Last Night

    Outside

    Health

    Aware

    The Door Bell

    Pick, Pick

    Art

    Less

    Shave It

    Dinner

    Does It Matter?

    Clean

    What’s Best

    Pre-algebra Now

    To Finish

    Gin

    Unloading

    Taking Our Walk

    Again

    Right Now

    Vacation

    Thanksgiving

    I Call Her

    She Didn’t Tell Us

    The Nerve

    Mama Mia’s Taco Town

    During a Commercial

    Mom?

    Paint

    Checkups

    That Doctor’s Fault

    In My Room

    What’s Next?

    Breakfast

    Crawdad

    It’s Obvious

    Figuring It Out

    Church

    The Church Friends I Had

    Thinking During the Sermon

    During Prayer

    The Butt

    Hi

    Winter Break

    The Usual

    Mom’s Turn

    A Gift

    In the Kitchen

    Good Morning

    Christmas

    The Beach

    Race

    Our Hair

    The Wig

    New Year’s Eve

    A Whisper

    Back to School

    Treatments

    A Spot

    Captain Crabs

    Dad

    Why Him?

    Whisperings

    Late

    The Empty Hall

    For Keeps

    Nuts

    Locked

    Shopping with Mom

    The Keys

    The Deli

    The Lessons Continue

    Floating

    Do You?

    Blah, Blah, Blah

    Out-a-towners

    The Bouquet

    Practice

    By Accident

    Running

    Sorry

    Nope

    No One

    The Mind Readers

    Bizarro

    Study Hall Rethought

    How Are You?

    Shortness

    Faithful

    Afraid

    Now

    Hattie

    Evening Walk

    Checking

    Why?

    Touching

    Testing It Out

    Charts

    I Pretend

    Hallucinations

    Kinds

    Explosion

    A Day

    Mixing Her Coffee

    Sick of It

    Skin and Bones

    Air-conditioning

    Incomplete

    Missing Parts

    No More

    Today

    Examples of Singular Verb Forms Ending in S

    Leaving

    Preparations

    The Truth

    The Others

    The Nurse

    Can’t Make It

    Missing Out

    Part

    School Conference

    Okay

    Enough

    My Mother

    Gurgle

    Aside

    Quietly

    No!

    Amazing

    The Body

    Three

    The Last Prayer

    Zip

    Beds

    Time Passing

    Questions

    Fake

    Disgusting

    Yelling at Mom in the Ladies’ Room

    Dead

    A Kiss

    The Service

    First

    The Receiving Line

    They Came

    The Hall Mirror

    Mom

    The Hearse

    The Burial

    Herein

    Later

    The Gathering

    How Dare They?

    Crunch

    Losing My Mind

    Afterward

    A Card

    No Wonder

    Fishing

    The Newspaper

    Shoes

    Wobbling

    Deb Calls

    Giving to Charity

    My Pastor

    Knit Together

    Her Favorite

    Sweetness

    Sunshower

    Best

    Radar

    Telling the Truth

    2:00 A.M.

    Back to School

    First Sip

    Author’s Note

    Resource

    Dedicated to

    MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, EULA MERCER,

    1904–1986

    MY GRANDMOTHER, MARGIE GARBER,

    1921–1983

    AND MY MOTHER, KARINE LEARY,

    B. 1943

    Special Thanks to

    MY HUSBAND, DAVID GROVER;

    MY PASTOR, TOM LYON;

    AND MY EDITOR, EMMA DRYDEN

    M*A*S*H

    Our living room

    is cozied up with laughter.

    Great Gran Eula smiles at the colonel

    and sips her iced tea.

    Grandma Margie snickers at Radar

    over her knitting.

    Mom laughs at Hot Lips

    and doesn’t finish paying the bills.

    I laugh so hard at Hawkeye

    my beanbag chair

    squishes under me.

    We finally stop laughing

    during the commercial,

    and Grandma Margie says,

    "I found a lump

    in my breast."

    What They Know

    A lump? I ask.

    On my left side.

    I’m sure it’s nothing, says Gran Eula.

    Probably just fluid, says Mom.

    Certainly benign, says Gran Eula.

    We’ll see, says Grandma Margie.

    I made a doctor’s appointment.

    All I’m thinking is,

    I don’t want to see or know

    anything

    about lumps

    in Grandma Margie.

    Breaking the Silence

    "You didn’t say

    how school went today, Kay," Mom says.

    Fine, I mumble.

    Anything happen? Grandma Margie asks.

    Not really, I say.

    What did you learn? asks Gran Eula.

    All that comes to mind is

    Mr. Ball

    spraying his air freshener

    in English class,

    trying to cover up his cigarette smoke

    left over from break.

    Tssssssssss,

    till a cloud hovered

    over us.

    Smelled like

    we were

    in a flower field on fire.

    "Most singular verb forms end in s,"

    he chanted,

    his big hair

    cutting a passage through the room.

    "Singular verb forms end in s,"

    I finally answer.

    That they do, says Gran Eula.

    Other Stuff

    "Deb, Sheray, David, and I

    are doing a science project

    together," I add.

    "Working as a team

    is always fun," says Grandma Margie.

    "Just don’t let those three

    leave you with all the work, sugarplum."

    Gran Eula clinks her ice cubes

    against her glass.

    Kay knows better than that, says Mom.

    I squirm down in my beanbag chair,

    remembering how I did do that

    on last year’s project.

    I was the one who pinned

    all those dead butterflies

    to the cardboard

    after I caught them

    and killed them.

    No, we’ll share the work, I say.

    I hope so. Gran Eula gives me

    the eye.

    What to Do

    Maybe we should discuss the lump, Mom says.

    M*A*S*H comes back on.

    None of us watch.

    Now, Karine, says Gran Eula,

    no need for that tonight.

    But—, says Mom.

    Karine.

    Grandma Margie and I watch those two

    go back and forth.

    But—,

    Sh. Sh.

    Fine. Mom slaps the checkbook down.

    Fine my daughter will be, says Gran Eula.

    Good Night

    We missed the ending

    of the show.

    Grandma Margie clicks off the TV.

    Good night, says Gran Eula.

    She carries her glass to the kitchen.

    Good night, says Mom,

    leaving the pile of bills on the table.

    Good night, I tell Grandma Margie

    even though it isn’t one.

    Good night, Kay.

    I look back.

    Grandma Margie stays in her chair,

    yarn between her fingers,

    staring at her reflection

    on the blank TV

    Bottles and Beauty

    We brush our hair.

    Natural pig bristles.

    Brush our teeth.

    Baking soda included.

    Floss.

    Waxed and minty.

    Glop on cold cream.

    Thick and white.

    Rinse.

    Tingly fresh.

    Cake on mango masks.

    Pink and gritty.

    Smear on aloe lotion.

    Smooth and soft.

    Spray on flower scents.

    Sweet and light.

    All the stuff we do,

    all the stuff we use,

    to be healthy and beautiful

    doesn’t stop a lump

    from growing,

    I guess.

    The Drawer

    I open the bathroom

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