The Life History of a Star

It's 1973, and Kristin Folger's diary is full of the dubious joys of being 14. Her body is doing weird things without her permission ("A giant betrayal! … My hips have spread apart like two wishbones being pulled from either side"), her parents' constant bickering is getting on her nerves ("Are there any adults who want to take responsibility for their lives? I think they're a bunch of blamers"), and school is just plain gross ("High school. Cesspool. What more can I say?"). But it's what Kristin doesn't write about that bothers her the most, and that's the "ghost" who lives upstairs--the howling, drooling ghost who used to be her brother David before he came back from Vietnam, who's now just a crippled shadow living behind a locked door. Growing up is hard. For Kristin, dealing with the treacherously changing landscapes of school and home, and her beloved brother's zombielike state, it feels almost impossible: "Now there's a canyon between me and everybody else. And all I can do is fall into the space between." Using her journal as a buffer against a world gone crazy, Kristin tries to close that canyon--one page at a time.

The Life History of a Star is a heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting chronicle of a wounded family during a confusing time, as seen through the eyes of a wise woman/child. Anyone who is or has ever been 14 will quickly find him- or herself walking the proverbial mile in Kristin Folger's platforms. First-time author Kelly Easton has written a "star," indeed. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert