Lynn Beckwith

"The first time I met my grandfather, he was laid up on a porcelain prep table at the Hamilton-Johnston Funeral Home. His eyes were wide open and he had a grin on his face, but he was as dead as doornail." So begins newcomer Helen Hemphill's engaging novel, a story of love and redemption, judgment and forgiveness, life and death . . . and Las Vegas.

Harlan Q. Stank, the 14-year-old protagonist, is working at the funeral home because he has left his own home after giving up on religion. This did not sit well with his father, Harlan P. Stank, the pastor of Sunnyside Savior Church. Harlan Q took up residence with the owners of the funeral home where the body of one Harlan O. Stank now rests. Got that genealogy? The middle initials are important: O is oldest, P is next and Q is the youngest. Harlan O and Harlan P have not been in touch with each other for 20 years, so it is quite a surprise when Harlan O shows up in Beans Creek, checks into the Wayfarer Motel, and ups and dies, before even so much as a phone call to his estranged son.

All the younger Stanks know is that Grandfather was worth quite a bit of cash, owned a Cadillac and lived in Las Vegas, far from boring Beans Creek. Mr. Stiletto, Grandfather's accountant, has everything in order and Harlan Q convinces the reverend that he can use the inheritance to start a radio mission, if only they could get to Las Vegas. So, they pack up the casket and start on the road trip of a lifetime.

Hemphill brings a fresh, humorous voice to her tale of travel, the big city, deception and forgiveness. Young Harlan Q, trying to leave Beans Creek behind, nearly loses himself. But in the end, he not only finds his own way, but gains insight into the mind and heart of his father. For readers who bemoan the violence and sordid storylines in many novels for teens, Hemphill's lively tale and memorable characters will be a breath of fresh air.

I have always been fascinated with American Sign Language. There is something beautiful and graceful about the emotion shown through the hands and the expressive faces of the signers. But what would it be like to have deaf parents? What would it be like to live as a hearing person in a deaf world? Delia Ray, who brought us the moving Ghost Girl last year, now turns her narrative gifts to the story of Gussie Davis, the hearing daughter of deaf parents. Ray, whose mother was raised by deaf parents, has obviously given a lot of thought to this special kind of life.

Gussie is the middle daughter, a preacher's kid growing up in Birmingham in 1948. She wants to be a godly girl, as her father and mother think she is, but Gussie just can't pull it off. Whether she secretly hums during the church service, jealously notices every unfair advantage her perfect older sister Margaret holds over her, or is angry when her father leaves to work as a missionary to deaf communities all over the South, Gussie has a hard time doing the right thing.

It is a rare story in which all the characters are so richly drawn. The three sisters have real emotions, including deep sibling rivalry for the love of their beloved, but often absent, father. Mrs. Davis works nonstop to keep the church running smoothly, the family's boarding house clean and her daughters in line. Even the boarders have complicated lives. There is also much rich back matter: Birmingham in the 1940s is a city of Jim Crow and sharply divided social classes; deaf people are objects of fascination and not considered full citizens; and to be black and deaf is more than most people can overcome. This is also a time of debate in deaf education: Can deaf people ever fully integrate into the hearing world if they communicate mainly with sign language? On so many levels, Delia Ray's story is an honest yet humorous look at a complicated time. Gussie and her sisters are characters who will stay with the reader for a long time.

Donna Jo Napoli, an author long admired for her fairy tale retellings (Zel, Beast, Bound and The Prince of the Pond), explores the famous Hans Christian Andersen story of The Ugly Duckling in a new version set in Tasmania.

Mother, a Pacific black duck, desperately encourages the enormous green egg in her nest to hatch. But when it does finally hatch, Mother is the only one who is happy. It seems that every critter on Dove Lake has it out for poor Ugly. The freckled ducks gang up on him, the grebes are simply terrified, and the teal ducklings bite him. Soon Mother has no choice. For the safety of the rest of her family, she sorrowfully lets him know his fate: You're my little genius. If you use your head, you have a chance. But if you stay here, you have none. The other ducks of Dove Lake will surely kill you. She advises him to make a friend. A friend helps. All anyone really needs is one good friend. So, sadly, that is what Ugly sets out to do, make a friend.

Napoli warmly embraces the wildlife of Tasmania through the eyes and beak of Ugly. First he attempts to befriend a plainspoken wallaby. But the wallaby seems only interested in boxing and protecting itself from the odious Tasmanian Devil, his most feared predator. Then, our unlikely hero meets up with a wombat, who promises to be a better friend, even though he stays in a hole and lives in fear of quolls. And on through the wonderful world of Tasmanian wildlife Ugly goes from wombat to swamphens to geese to human beings to possums and, finally, to swans. He learns the truth about himself and finds out that his mother was right after all: all anyone really needs is a good friend.

Napoli's hilarious ducky voice rings through this entertaining tale. She chooses not to talk down to her young readers, filling her prose with such scientific words as crepuscular, undulate, nocturnal and monotreme. A professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, Napoli conveys a contagious delight in language and a charming animal's-eye view of the world.

Rose and Ivy Latham are sisters, friends and companions, until one winter night when a new driver in a blue truck slides off a mountain road into their car. Eighteen-year-old Ivy was driving, but now she is in a coma in a convalescent home. Though she is not technically brain dead, doctors find virtually no brain function. When she is experimentally taken off the ventilator, Ivy tries to breathe and convinces her bereft mother that she wants to live. So her life continues. She is fed by a stomach tube, her hair grows, her eyes stay closed, even when her sister sits with her for hours and hours, reading and talking to her.

Anyone who has lived through the horror of a traumatic brain injury will recognize the survivors. First we have 17-year-old Rose, who relives the terror of the accident every day. She wakes up, hoping that this memory is nothing more that a terrible nightmare. But it isn't. Every quiet moment is filled with the blue truck, the brakes, the rainy road, the blood, the terror and the emptiness. It can not be filled by the hours and hours spent visiting Ivy and reading to her. It cannot be filled with gratuitous sex. Nothing can make her feel anything. The weight of the accident is too much for Rose as she is consumed with memories and the thoughts of what she would give up to have Ivy back. Would she sacrifice even her life?

Then, we have their mother. She fills her day at the brewery, righting bottles, straightening labels and blindly working. At night, her hands are busy, too. She is obsessively folding 1,000 paper cranes, folding and folding as if that will save her girl. She does not fill her days visiting her comatose daughter, however. In the words of her compassionate neighbor, William T., she is doing the best she can.

Though Rose's mother is living in denial and in her own pain, William T. and a childhood friend, Tom Miller, recognize her pain and help her move toward healing. Little by little, Rose comes to realize that Ivy was someone who lived her life like a rushing river, while Rose has to rely on her inner lake of calm to restore herself.

All Rivers Flow to the Sea presents a sad, touching and altogether realistic story. The first-person narrative can, at times, be almost too painful, too close. But McGhee's voice is always clear and honest.