Synopsis
Now in paperback— A teenager struggles through physical loss to the start of acceptance in an absorbing, artful novel at once honest and insightful, wrenching and redemptive.
On a sunny day in June, at the beach with her mom and brother, fifteen-year-old Jane Arrowood went for a swim. And then everything — absolutely everything — changed. Now she’s counting down the days until she returns to school with her fake arm, where she knows kids will whisper, "That’s her — that’s Shark Girl," as she passes. In the meantime there are only questions: Why did this happen? Why her? What about her art? What about her life? In this striking first novel, Kelly Bingham uses poems, letters, telephone conversations, and newspaper clippings to look unflinchingly at what it’s like to lose part of yourself - and to summon the courage it takes to find yourself again.
Excerpt
GHOST
Sometimes
I can still feel my right hand,
like a best friend;
weighted,
warm.
Sometimes
Mom looks for a tissue
or the book
lying among my covers
and I reach for it,
then I remember
I cannot reach with that hand
ever again.
Sometimes
a prickle crawls across my cheek,
and that right hand tries to
rise from the grave,
moved to scratch.
The fingers, palm,
wrist, and arm
that I remember
don't know enough
to know
peace.
_______
SHARK GIRL by Kelly Bingham. Copyright © 2007 by Kelly Bingham. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.
Excerpted from Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham. Copyright © 2010 by Kelly Bingham. Excerpted by permission of Candlewick, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.