My Own Square Inch of Alaska. Sharon Short. Penguin Group
(USA). January 2013. 336 pp. hbk. ISBN #: 9780452298767.
Donna
Lane is a young girl with a vivid dream of becoming a notable designer, a field
she ardently loves. Yet she also feels
bound to stay home in a small Ohio town with her father, who seems oblivious to
everything and everyone and her brother, Will. All seems relatively normal
aside from living without the guiding hand of a loving mother. Will is obsessed with a TV Show focusing on
its hero, Sergeant Striker, and is determined to collect enough cereal box tops
to win ownership of “one square inch of Alaska” and a trip there with his hero.
Life
has other plans in a sense. Will becomes very, very ill. Donna is determined for him to have his one
big wish granted but finds out that the Alaska game is a big fat scam. However,
that doesn’t deter her and she decides to take Will to Alaska and get him his
one square inch. The rest of the novel
is about their harrowing trip where strangers assist them after falling in love
with their dream wish, all of this as Will is becoming weaker and weaker.
An
ordinary tale told with extraordinary skill, My Own Square Inch of Alaska is about the special qualities of a
brother-sister relationship. It’s also about the hope that must endure no
matter what devastating realities occur, whether that be the disappointments
from crooked liars who promise large and deliver small or nothing or from the
battle between hope and despair in the face of terminal illness – the fact that
one is not dying but is fully living until one dies – a phenomenon we often
forget applies to all.
Tenderly
and humorously told, this is a novel to be cherished by all readers who love
any genre! Well done, Ms. Short!
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