The Lost Language by Claudia Mills

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Lost Language by Claudia Mills Deborah Stevenson, Editor Mills, Claudia The Lost Language. Ferguson/Holiday House, 2021 [304p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780823450381 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780823450695 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-7 Sixth-graders Betsy (Bumble) and Liz (Lizard) have been best friends for years, despite Betsy’s mother’s reservations about audacious Lizard’s influence on mild-mannered Betsy, who’s under pressure from her mother to “bloom.” As Betsy’s demanding mother battles with work challenges—she’s a linguistics professor who studies dying languages—Lizard gets a thrilling idea: she and Betsy will learn one of those dying languages and help its survival, assisting Betsy’s mom and proving the value of her project. The girls dive into basic Guernésiais (the old language of the France-adjacent UK isle of Guernsey), but there’s more going on with Betsy’s mother than just work frustrations, and when the family situation erupts it leaves the girls divided and Betsy stunned. Mills writes in free verse here rather than her familiar prose, but her keen insight into dynamics and character remains evident, and the compact, accessible phraseology deftly distills the portrayals. Narrator Betsy is particularly well delineated as somebody who has her own strengths, not always visible to her mother, despite her willingness to let Lizard take the lead, and there’s some gentle illumination of Lizard’s limitations alongside respect for her. Betsy’s family situation is also authentic, with its push-pull dynamic between her easygoing dad and hard-driving mother, and it’s believable that her father’s mishandling of her mother’s suicide attempt—initially lying to Betsy about what happened and then letting the information leak so that Betsy’s classmates know the truth before she does—rocks Betsy almost as much as the incident itself. Ultimately, though, it’s satisfying to see Betsy weather adversity and prove her own strength: “I’m the one who gets to decide/ what blooming means to me.” The author includes an extensive note about dying languages. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois