Chicks with Sticks (It's a Purl Thing) (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chicks with Sticks (It's a Purl Thing) Karen Coats Lenhard, Elizabeth Chicks with Sticks (It's a Purl Thing). Dutton, 2005261p ISBN 0-525-47622-9$15.99 Ad Gr. 6-10 Grieving the death of her favorite aunt and just entering the rocky emotional terrain of puberty, Scottie is surprised to find that knitting, of all things, solves her insomnia and quiets her troubled emotions. Though her friends initially make fun of her, her friend Amanda soon joins her in a funky little knitting joint in Chicago, where two of their classmates—the sullen, disaffected Tay and the formerly homeschooled, whole-foods hippie Bella—join them. As the foursome "get their knit on," they form a supportive girl group upon which Scottie becomes increasingly dependent. The group starts to fray, however, as Bella replaces her yoga with meditative knitting (no interaction allowed), Tay's project of knitting a sweater to attract her crush turns into an embarrassing disaster, and Amanda moves on to free-style knitting with a group of avant-garde college students. Scottie is back to where she started—ignored by her chic parents and left behind by her friends. The final blow comes when Alice, earth-mother owner of the yarn store the girls frequent, closes up shop. Though the story is told from Scottie's point of view, hers is the least [End Page 318] explored perspective; the other girls' problems, and their solutions, are much more interestingly covered and satisfyingly resolved, while Scottie, on the other hand, never comes to terms with the reasons behind her obsessive compulsion to knit. A quick "I understand and respect you" speech from her self-absorbed mother seems an insufficient resolution to their complex relationship problems, and the widening of their knitting circle, though it produces a happy ending, doesn't exactly resolve Scottie's codependency or abandonment issues. Still, Lenhard makes good use of knitting puns and metaphors, and she obviously has firsthand knowledge of the tactile lure and restorative bennies of knitting. Easy patterns included. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois