BLOOMABILITY

If you long to make the acquaintance of someone extraordinary in the most extraordinary of circumstances, Newbery-winning author Sharon Creech had best introduce you to Dinnie--Domenica Santolina Doone--who has been spirited off to an international boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland, at the age of 13. Bonnie Hurren understands Dinnie all too well, her longing for permanence in the world, her feelings of displacement in a family whose love is as abundant as its disorganization and poverty. Hurren's first-person narration captures Dinnie's no-nonsense attitude with its deep underlying desire for some other life. Additionally, as a welcome respite from Dinnie's earnestness, Hurren delivers a fiercely accented Italian Grandma Fiorelli; frequent and wildly funny postcards narrated by Dinnie's drawling Southern aunts, Grace and Tillie; and the exuberant Italian exclamations of Dinnie's new best friend, Guthrie. A lively cast of characters is fully realized. T.B. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]