What I Believe

by Norma Fox Mazer

Overview

When Vicki's father is laid off from his job, everything changes. Her family moves to a city apartment, and Vicki has to forge a new path at her urban school. Worst of all, one night her depressed father simply disappears. Vicki soon finds herself living a double life--fine on the outside, anything "but" fine on the inside--and that leads to a moral dilemma she's ultimately forced to confront.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780152062835
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/01/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

NORMA FOX MAZER is an award-winning novelist and a faculty member for the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program. Her books have received a Newbery Honor, a Christopher Award, an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, a National Book Award nomination, and other honors. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

"An appealing story for both strong and reluctant readers."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Mazer (When She Was Good) traces the ungluing of a suburbanite family in this emotionally taut book narrated by middle-schooler Vicki Marnet. Vicki, who has a passion for words, uses brief monologues and multiple forms of verse (including sestinas and pantoums) to express her own and her parents' feelings after her father loses his executive job and the family teeters on the brink of ruin-in financial and emotional terms. She describes her father's state of depression ("but dad/ doesn't/ do anything-/ too tired all the time./ mom can't even leave him alone,/ or won't") and crystallizes her mother's take-charge attitude ("Dad listened, his hands/ steepled. Mom did the talking./ `We're putting the house/ up for sale. We have no choice./ We're drowning in debt. Drowning!"). Vicki, her older brothers and their parents move to the city, where Mrs. Marnet finds employment, but a cloud of despair still hovers over the family. Unable to face his failures, Vicki's father leaves home, and Vicki's room is subleased to a boarder in order to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Vicki stoops to desperate measures (she steals from their boarder), but she also makes a new friend and discovers the importance of confidences. These often poignant journal entries add up to a candid portrayal of how a teen's life can change overnight. Readers who are able to see beyond Vicki's gloom will discover how the protagonist's love of language proves to have a healing effect. Ages 10-14. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5-8-Vicki's life is turned upside down when her father loses his job, becomes despondent, and eventually leaves the family. She reveals her innermost thoughts through poems and journal entries that tell the story of change-a new neighborhood, new school, new friends, and a once-secure life that is becoming more and more uncertain. Readers are drawn into the girl's struggle to right her impulsive decision to steal money, and they will identify with the anguish Vicki faces each day, trying to be normal and hiding the facts of her home life and changed financial situation. The format and the contemporary setting make this an appealing story for both strong and reluctant readers. Those who enjoyed Sonya Sones's What My Mother Doesn't Know (2001) and Margaret Peterson Haddix's Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey (1996, both S & S) will be taken with the novel's free-flowing style and revelations.-Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A fast-paced verse novel chronicles a suburban teen's nightmare: losing her most comfortable, well-appointed lifestyle to a bare bones existence in the city. Vicki Marnet's 56-year-old father is laid off after 28 years in corporate America. Two years later, he still hasn't found work and Vicki's mother decides to sell off everything, get a job and move the family to an apartment in the city. After a brief stint of menial jobs, Vicki's dad becomes so depressed, he leaves. While he's gone, Vicki's mom invites a co-worker to live in their already small apartment, kicking Vicki (but not her two brothers) out of the already tiny space she inhabits, which encourages Vicki's final misjudgment. Throughout, Vicki relates every detail of her loss and difficult adjustment through a variety of poems, journals and e-mails. Adolescent readers might appreciate Mazer's ear for teen language but they may balk at the persistently negative perspective through which Vicki views her life and the choices she makes. While Mazur is particularly effective in relating Vicki's story through poetic forms such as pantoun and sestina, her character is too self-critical, has limited perspective and little depth. Mazur's problem verse-novel becomes unexpectedly uncomfortable and one may wonder if the payoff comes to Vicki and her readers at too high a price. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews