The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech

I am a rabid Sharon Creech fan. I love her work!!!! Love how she writes, how she frames sentences, how she crafts messages into her writing. I love Walk Two Moons, The Wanderer, Love that Dog, Ruby Holler, Heartbeat....my list goes on and on for her work. So when I realized that she had a new book coming out, I immediately put the book on hold at the Multnomah County Library. Yep, even before they had received their copies.  He-he-he-he-he, I love the deviousness of that action, the curiousness of my need to read her new words. The magic day it came, I could hardly let the book out of my sight. I was busy with my usual after school duties, what with chatting with Alysa about her day at school (most important than ever now that she is in high school), making dinner, prepping for my next day at work, and taking Alysa to dance class. Every so often, I would walk by the book, touch the intriguing cover, and wonder when I would devour the book. Ironically this was not a devour book; rather, for me, this was a savor book for me. I loved the savoring story.

The Great Unexpected offers a glimpse into the unpredictable universality of life. Our lives to be more specific. To me, Ms. Creech has grown with her writing, molding more complex themes, and explorations into her writing, and this book offers the most complex yet. She weaves heartbreak, heartache, and intrigue into the dailiness of living, wondering, and interacting. This book seems totally different from her others to me, although a tad of the abstractness reminded me of The Unfinished Angel. In The Great Unexpected, she ties two orphan girls, some strange townspeople, and a bunch of birds into a calm life-changing adventure that most of us would love to lift up as a story. My take away: be not afraid. Be not afraid of the unpredictable trials life throws at you, be not afraid of how friends seem to step away, and be not afraid of boys falling out of trees, having emerged from nowhere. Oh, and those birds: well, don't fear them either. They tell stories in their silence.

I hear your fingers tapping on the keys already....Amazon anyone? Library in your area?

**Side note to a reader from earlier: Little Bee just arrived. My week is pretty busy but looking ahead to Thanksgiving week offers a breath of possibility!!! Thanks for the nudge.