In another fine novel about Crisfield, Md., Voigt tells of the
growing up of Mina Smiths, fondly remembered as the girl who
brilliantly defended Dicey Tillerman when the English teacher
accused her of plagiarism (in Dicey"s Song), and for her friendship
with Tamer Shipp (of The Runner). Mina is a vibrant protagonist:
super-bright, self-assured, likable. At 11, she's a scholarship
student and the only black in a summer ballet program for gifted
students. Joyfully, she expands her horizons in classical music,
multiple friendships, and ballet; yet when she returns the next
year, she is awkwardly gangly from a growth spurt; moreover, her
developing social consciousness has made her so much less compliant
that she's sent home, feeling all the uneasiness of precarious
black/white interaction. Meeting Tamer, her father's summer
replacement as minister at the local church, she finds a friend
with intelligence and a questing spirit to match her own. Mina has
always had a relationship of mutual confidence and respect with her
parents; now Tamer, precious yet unattainable, becomes the person
for whom she feels the warmest regard. Meanwhile, as years pass and
schoolgirl crush becomes more mature love, Mina hears the old story
about Bullet Tillerman, lost in Vietnam, meets Dicey, and brings
old Mrs. Tillerman and Tamer together in a moving scene where each
unexpectedly helps the other to make peace with the past. Tamer
moves far away, and at the story's close Mina is lucky enough to
meet a gifted young man her own age. No brief synopsis can do
justice to the novel's rich texture: the warm, complex Smiths
family, the carefully wrought members of the close-knit community
where they live, the humorous and serious give and take, the
gradual rise of Mina's awareness, the fundamentally generous
spirit. Not a sequel but a parallel narrative that Voigt's fans
will be eager to read; it should bring her new fans as well.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Mina looked out of the car window to keep her face private from the man beside her. She felt sorry for herself because they'd taken dance camp away from her. Because she wasn't good enough. Because she was black.
Mina Smiths feels as if her life is over when she is expelled from summer dance camp. Is it really because of the colour of her skin? Overwhelmed with the misery of failure and rejection, she turns to Tamer Shipp, the temporary minister at her father's church. He understands her feelings, even her feelings about him.
A gentle story about self-belief and the importance of following your heart, 'Come A Stranger' develops characters introduced in Books Two and Four of the Tillerman Series.
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