Icy Sparks: Amazon.ca: Gwyn Hyman Rubio, Kate Miller: Books

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Book Description

Publication Date: Mar 7 2001 | Series: Oprah's Book Club

An Oprah's Book Club selection

Set in Appalachia during the late 1950s, this acclaimed first novel chronicles a young girl's heartbreaking battle with Tourette's syndrome.

Ten-year-old Icy Sparks already has one strike against her: She's an orphan. Life becomes even more difficult when Icy develops strange symptoms: violent tics, inexplicable convulsions, sudden outbursts, and uncontrollable cursing that accompany her rare neurological disorder. Her affliction goes undiagnosed until adulthood, but the all-too-visible signs are the source of endless mystery and hilarity as everyone around offers an opinion about what's troubling the girl. Eventually Icy finds solace in the company of Miss Emily, who knows what it's like to be an outcast in this tightly knit community.

Narrated by a now-grown Icy, this novel shimmers with warmth and humor as it recounts a young girl's painful journey to womanhood. A funny, sad, and transcendent story, Icy Sparks introduces a fresh new Southern voice.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } An Oprah's Book Club selection

Set in Appalachia during the late 1950s, this acclaimed first novel chronicles a young girl's heartbreaking battle with Tourette's syndrome.

Ten-year-old Icy Sparks already has one strike against her: She's an orphan. Life becomes even more difficult when Icy develops strange symptoms: violent tics, inexplicable convulsions, sudden outbursts, and uncontrollable cursing that accompany her rare neurological disorder. Her affliction goes undiagnosed until adulthood, but the all-too-visible signs are the source of endless mystery and hilarity as everyone around offers an opinion about what's troubling the girl. Eventually Icy finds solace in the company of Miss Emily, who knows what it's like to be an outcast in this tightly knit community.

Narrated by a now-grown Icy, this novel shimmers with warmth and humor as it recounts a young girl's painful journey to womanhood. A funny, sad, and transcendent story, Icy Sparks introduces a fresh new Southern voice.

Product Details

Audio CD
Publisher: HighBridge Company; Slightly abridged; 7 hours on 6 CDs edition (Mar 7 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1565115139
ISBN-13: 978-1565115132
Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 14.3 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 263 g

Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (196 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Amazon

The eponymous heroine of Gwyn Rubio's Icy Sparks is only 10 years old the first time it happens. The sudden itching, the pressure squeezing her skull, and the "little invisible rubber bands" attached to her eyelids are all symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. At this point, of course, Icy doesn't yet have a name for these unsettling impulses. But whenever they become too much to resist, she runs down to her grandparents' root cellar, and there she gives in, croaking, jerking, cursing, and popping her eyes. Nicknamed the "frog child" by her classmates, Icy soon becomes "a little girl who had to keep all of her compulsions inside." Only a brief confinement at the Bluegrass State Hospital persuades her that there are actually children more "different" than she.

As a first novel about growing up poor, orphaned, and prone to fits in a small Appalachian town, Icy Sparks tells a fascinating story. By the time the epilogue rolls around, Icy has prevailed over her disorder and become a therapist: "Children silent as stone sing for me. Children who cannot speak create music for me." For readers familiar with this particular brand of coming-of-age novel--affliction fiction?--Icy's triumph should come as no great surprise. That's one problem. Another is Rubio's tendency to lapse into overheated prose: this is a novel in which the characters would sooner yell, pout, whine, moan, or sass a sentence than simply say it. But the real drawback to Icy Sparks is that some of the characters--especially the bad ones--are drawn with very broad strokes indeed, and the moral principles tend to be equally elementary: embrace your difference, none of us is alone, and so on. When Icy gets saved at a tent revival, even Jesus takes on the accents of a self-help guru: "You must love yourself!" With insights like these, this is one Southern novel that's more Wally Lamb than Harper Lee. --Mary Park --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome isn't mentioned until the last pages of Rubio's sensitive portrayal of a young girl with the disease. Instead, Rubio lets Icy Sparks tell her own story of growing up during the 1950s in a small Kentucky town where her uncontrollable outbursts make her an object of fright and scorn. "The Saturday after my [10th] birthday, the eye blinking and poppings began.... I could feel little invisible rubber bands fastened to my eyelids, pulled tight through my brain and attached to the back of my head," says Icy, who thinks of herself as the "frog child from Icy Creek." Orphaned and cared for by her loving grandparents, Icy weathers the taunts of a mean schoolteacher and, later, a crush on a boy that ends in disappointment. But she also finds real friendship with the enormously fat Miss Emily, who offers kindness and camaraderie. Rubio captures Icy's feelings of isolation and brings poignancy and drama to Icy's childhood experiences, to her temporary confinement in a mental institution and to her reluctant introduction?thanks to Miss Emily and Icy's grandmother?to the Pentecostal church through which she discovers her singing talent. If Rubio sometimes loses track of Icy's voice, indulges in unconvincing magical realism and takes unearned poetic license with the speech of her Appalachian grandparents ("'Your skin was as cold as fresh springwater, slippery and strangely soothing to touch'"), her first novel is remarkable for its often funny portrayal of a child's fears, loves and struggles with an affliction she doesn't know isn't her fault. Agent, Susan Golomb; editor, Jane von Mehren.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars I loved Icy July 13 2004

By Kentucky reader

Format:Paperback

I really liked this book, and I am fairly easily "bored" with some books, and am definately turned off by saccharine stories. I listened to the audio version, and never felt as though it was moving too slowly. I enjoyed all of the narrative. My 9 and 13 year old girls liked it very much also (although I fast-forwarded through the section where Icy and PeeVee have their conflict). When I listen to the tape on the way to work, Icy stays with me all day. I would recommend it to anyone interested in coming-of-age stories with a twist.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Icy Sparks July 10 2004

By smartnurse123

Format:Audio CD

This is a poor southern story focusing on a young girl named Icy Sparks, who has various physical and social problems while growing up... She is raised by her grandparents because her mother died when she was very young. As a youngster, Icy has unusual outbursts that cause her to be ostracized by the people in the small southern town where she is raised. To make matters worse, she has very few friends, except for Miss Emily. Miss Emily is an obese old maid who gives her advice on life and encourages her to go to college.

The story centers on Icy's thoughts and perspectives and in the end teaches a lesson to all of us on overcoming and not giving up. The plot, though interesting and full of great description, is slow and somewhat boring.

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3.0 out of 5 stars not impressed May 24 2004

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

The writer definitely knows her craft. She is capable of some amazing descriptions and gives the subject of a young girl with Tourette's syndrome a poetic touch. But the characters are almost all stereotypes, and the understanding shown toward the girl seems too good to be true for the time and place the book is set in. Of course, she does meet her share of mockery, but those who love her achieve an unnatural state of acceptance and peace - yes, they should in an ideal world, but this is a time where no info on Tourette's was available.

While it is possible to tell a story by painting everything in primary colors, the reader eventually begins to long for some shades of gray. So it was here.

Icy Sparks [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

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