Monkey Tree [Hardcover]

Anderson, whose debut novel, Going Through the Gate, dealt with coming-of-age rituals, takes on another uncommon theme in this thought-provoking story. Fourteen-year-old Susanna is a talented artist undergoing intense self-doubt that is exacerbated when she meets her uncle, an artist who is incapacitated by fear. In addition, one of her best friends has moved away, another has disowned Susanna and the desire to create art in favor of joining the popular crowd, and Susanna watches her father put aside his music career. Susanna is dislocated still further when her grandmother dies and the family moves into her grandparents' home for the summer. It is then that she meets her mother's reclusive, erratic Uncle Louie, once an artist but now a family burden. Although Susanna is initially afraid of him, she quickly comes to identify with his sensitivity to beauty. Through a harrowing experience involving Uncle Louie and her brother, Susanna discovers her own resiliency. She also acquires an unlikely friend and learns that her accomplished brother has his own insecurities. Anderson's prose, filled with vigorous descriptions and staccato phrases, keeps the action moving, but the novel leaves many unanswered questions concerning the ambivalence of Susanna's father about his music and Uncle Louie's mental state and its probable causes. Readers will have trouble, as well, connecting the themes of friendship and isolation with the image of tailless monkeys that Susanna draws. An interesting but unsettling book. Ages 12-15.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 7-9-A dark and intense story of a 14-year-old girl's retreat from the world and her struggle to reconnect. After her grandmother dies, Susanna and her family spend the summer at Grandma's house to care for Great Uncle Louis, a recluse who hasn't left his bedroom in 20 years. Louis, like Susanna, is artistic and extremely sensitive. She empathizes with him. Betrayed by a friend and stung by some negative comments on her artwork by a teacher, Susanna has become friendless, fearful, and insecure. With some help from a fierce yet funny new friend, she begins to realize many things: life is hard, but also wonderful; it's important to take risks; being different doesn't mean being crazy; people need others; and art is very important to her. When Uncle Louis disappears, she is able to draw on her inner resources to deal with the situation. Susanna's paralysis of spirit and her nervousness are reflected in the jumpy, fragmented, somewhat stream-of-consciousness style of the novel-a style that is sometimes difficult to follow. Susanna draws a tree (hence the title) with monkeys hanging from branches and reaching out to help other monkeys climb up. This tree becomes a metaphor for her need to abandon her withdrawal and reach out to those around her. A difficult read with a limited audience.
Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this empathetic portrait of a troubled teenager, Anderson (Going Through the Gate, 1997) makes ordinary problems weigh as heavily on readers as they do on the heroine. Susanna feels friendless and bereft after her only friend callously dumps her, her football-hero brother grows aloof, and her teacher makes debilitating comments about her art portfolio. In her Uncle Louie, who has cloistered himself away from the world for 20 years, Susanna thinks she has found a kindred spirit. Louie, who is descending into senility, is more than she can handle, and the path out of her isolation lies instead in Susanna's friendship with Melody, an overweight, acerbic neighbor who is verbally abused by her father. Susanna's melancholia, artistic vision, and detachment are portrayed with a disarming combination of delicacy and power. The reasons behind Uncle Louie's retreat from the world are all but palpable, as is the rough charm of Melody and her sanguine younger sister, April. (Fiction. 12-15) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Susanna's great-uncle hasn't left his bedroom for twenty years. Her mother says that he was one of those children born without skin, so sensitive that everything hurt him. With her artist's eyes and feelings, Susanna can understand the appeal of the beautiful little sanctuary to Uncle Louis. It's a treasure room--a place for hoarding and holing up against the world. Susanna would like to hide there with him. In this powerful new novel, Janet S. Anderson, acclaimed author of Going Through the Gate, shares the observations and stinging emotions of a fourteen-year-old girl in retreat from the world. The brutal betrayal of a friend and the scathing comments of a teacher send Susanna deep within herself, searching fearfully for a way to safely connect again. Uncle Louis, with his silences and shared artist's skills, seems to offer that. But a fiercely determined, funny neighbor and the demands of her own curiosity pull Susanna back into experience. And when tragedy comes, she learns that what she has to give can be enough. Ms. Anderson's previous novel, Going Through the Gate, received a starred review from School Library Journal and a pointer from Kirkus. And Publishers Weekly noted that it brilliantly evokes the fear and exhilaration of growing up.