Young Adult Fiction General (see Also Headings Under Family)
Girl from Mars
- Publisher
- Groundwood Books Ltd
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2008
- Category
- General (see also headings under Family), Girls & Women, LGBT
- Recommended Age
- 0
- Recommended Grade
- p to 12
- Recommended Reading age
- 0
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780888997258
- Publish Date
- Mar 2008
- List Price
- $12.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780888997241
- Publish Date
- Mar 2008
- List Price
- $16.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Out of print
This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.
Description
Miriam is fifteen and she has lived in the same little town her whole life, going to school with the same kids who know everything about her. But now she's in high school and wishing she lived in a big city where she could meet new people and see new things. In other words, like fifteen-year-olds everywhere, Miriam is desperately waiting for her life to start happening. Something, anything -- a first love, perhaps.
And then love comes, in a completely unexpected way, when Miriam meets a new classmate, Laura. Suddenly, life is very complicated and unsettling, as Miriam finds herself lying to her girlfriends, avoiding her brother's probing questions, and second guessing every move she makes. Then Philip, Miriam and Laura take a weekend trip to the big city -- a trip that makes everything clear, and more confusing than ever.
About the authors
Tamara Bach lives and writes in Berlin, where she also works in young people's television and theater.
SHELLEY TANAKA is an award-winning author, translator and editor. She has written more than twenty books for children and young adults, winning the Orbis Pictus Award, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Science in Society Book Award and the Information Book Award, and she has twice been nominated for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Other honors include Texas Blue Bonnet runner-up, School Library Journal Best Books, ALA Notables and IRA Young Adults’ Choice. Her translation of Michel Noel’s Good for Nothing won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and was on the IBBY Honor List (Commended). Shelley teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts, in the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.
Editorial Reviews
...Bach effectively ties her young protagonist's new feelings to her moving into a new, more adult phase of life in general...an evocative treatment of a girl's heady launch into a new view of herself which will stay with her even if its catalyst doesn't.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
...Bach's nuanced portrait of small-town ennui is a fresh, detail-driven approach to a universal theme. It succeeds as a coming-out story by treating the coming-out process as incidental to a larger journey of self-awakening...readers will relate to Miriam's evolution from numb to engaged.
Horn Book
It is a testament to Bach's gifts as a writer that this novel has the ring of truth, not just in its evocation of a first, powerful love, but also in its vivid characters and their often quixotic actions and interactions.
Globe and Mail
Bach's writing and Tanaka's translation offer well-drawn, familiar characters and prose that's spare yet descriptive. Miriam's narration, alive with Bach's insightful handling and clever turns of phrase, provides a sense of depth to the highs and lows of teenage emotions...
School Library Journal
Debut author Tamara Bach has created an atmospheric and easily relatable novel for teens...Narrating the story in first person, the author has lent an authentic voice to her protagonist...she does an excellent job...
CM Magazine
Other titles by
First Times: Short Stories about Sex
Marcel with a Splash
Taming Papa
Paulina
The Story of an Almost Unlucky Pig
Suck It in and Smile
Pebbles to the Sea
I Have the Right to Culture
Do You Know Where the Animals Live?
Discovering the Incredible Creatures All Around Us
My Body in Pieces
