When a little sister goes to heaven

Getting Near To Baby
Audrey Couloumbis
Scholastic, Inc.
211 pages
Available in Goodwill Bookstore

There is no death that is felt as deeply as that of the death of a child, be it by the parents, the siblings, or even the extended family members. This sad truth is what sets the backdrop for Getting Near to Baby, which finds the main protagonist, 13-year-old Willa Jo, and her seven-year-old sister up in the roof of their Aunt Patty’s house, with nary a hint of the desire of ever getting down.

When Baby dies – their nickname for the baby Joy Ellen, who follows JoAnn, nicknamed Little Sister – from a bacterial illness she got from drinking bad water, their grief-stricken single mother seems to put all their lives on hold, turning to painting picture after picture of her dead daughter and living like there nothing else mattered: dishes pile up in the sink, sleep schedules are upturned, even meals are triggered only by the consensus of hunger.

Out of concern for her younger sister and her two remaining nieces, childless Aunt Patty descends upon their lives with her no-nonsense, pragmatic, even if at times obsessive, approach, and, after buying groceries and cleaning the house, whisks away Willa Jo and Little Sister to give Noreen some space and time to snap out of her paralyzing state of grief.

It is this change that Willa Jo finds difficulty accepting. It’s bad enough that they’ve hardly had time to grieve since Baby’s death and that Little Sister has stopped talking out of sadness; now, they have to adjust to a way of living that goes against the free way in which they were brought up. First to go are their clothes, then Aunt Patty involves herself in their choice of friends, and then she tries to control everything from which door to use to how many cookies they are to eat. It is a quick recipe for disagreement – and this is the nudge that sends Willa Jo, with her little sister following her as usual, up the roof, which, in turn, sends Aunt Patty into a state of frenzy.

What initially seems like an act of rebellion, however, unfolds into something deeper as the story progresses in a series of flashbacks, revealing the special relationships between the family members and casting a better light on each of their misunderstood motives. Willa Jo’s day up the roof also transforms each of the memorable characters, highlighting how family members can touch and transform each other’s lives especially in the light of tragedy.

What is delightful about this Newberry Honor book is that author Audrey Couloumbis treats a highly tragic theme with a bit of sensitively placed humor, lending her novel a light feel and giving its message additional mileage by ensuring that it is more felt than merely understood. – Althea Lauren Ricardo