Abstract
Reviewed by: Stranded Deborah Stevenson Dutton, J. T. Stranded. HarperTeen, 2010. [256p]. ISBN 978-0-06-137082-3 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 8-12. Heaven, Iowa isn't exactly celestial to fifteen-year-old Kelly Louise, who's moved with her mother to the small rural town to live with Kelly Louise's grandmother and cousin Natalie. The most exciting thing to happen in Heaven isn't the arrival of Kelly Louise's wannabe smart mouth and citified ways, which are generally greeted with ridicule, but the recent abandonment in a cornfield of a newborn baby, which then died. Kelly Louise's mother confidentially informs her daughter that it was innocent, pillar-of-the-church-youth-group Natalie who had the baby, a secret that Natalie has only shared with Kelly Louise's mother, and our protagonist's stay in Heaven starts to take on a different complexion. Kelly Louise's narration of this strange interlude is wry and often hilarious (sometimes from her own mistaken but seemingly unshakable convictions about her worldly wisdom), yet the picture of the town Dutton draws through her heroine's voice is quirky and affectionate as well as clear-eyed. The character portraits are particularly impressive in their originality and richness: Natalie, voluptuous, sheltered, and convinced that her baby was God's problem and not hers; Kelly Louise's neighbor and classmate, Kenny the reprobate, who has kept silent about his presence at the baby's birth and who provides Kelly Louise with her first sexual experience. Underneath, though, is an often subtextual grappling with the emotional reality of Natalie's act, and Kelly Louise, who eventually reports her cousin's crime, proves an unlikely source of wisdom: "Natalie should have the chance to fall and be forgiven, not just by us, but by herself and everyone else." Readers will relish both the entertaining narration and the inevitable ensuing arguments about the ethics of the situation. [End Page 479] Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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