After Sylvia

Owen Skye #2

by Alan Cumyn

After Sylvia follows Owen Skye when his true love, Sylvia Tull, moves away. Heartbroken, Owen does his best to get over Sylvia by going from one adventure to he adopts a slobbering, bouncy, rock-obsessed hound named Sylvester, runs for class president, and joins his brothers in taking revenge against bossy cousin Eleanor. He even tries learning some new life skills, such as getting Horace to show him how to make the perfect fried egg, or asking Uncle Lorne to demonstrate his famous loon call. Gradually Owen's memory of Sylvia begins to fade. As the new school year unfolds, the magic of the Skye brothers' antic adventures is replaced with a different sort of magic — the magic of stillness that inspires clarity and insight. Owen is growing up, but happily for young readers, he never loses his most endearing qualities — his sweet vulnerability, his impulsive courage, and his gigantic imagination.

Genres: Childrens, Middle Grade

200 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 2004

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the first book in this Canadian YA coming-of-age series, "The Secret Life of Owen Skye", I did want to see what was going to happen to our "hero" after Sylvia and her family moved away.
Unfortunately, as in the first volume, there is not much here that says "Canada", but I liked this one much more than the first volume. Owen is involved with people and emotions more here, unlike in the first book, where we have super heroes and ghosts and creatures.
Warning, read as an ebook, and there are a fair number of "typos" that occurred when it was transferred from print to digital. Most seem in the 2nd half of the book, and happens a lot with "and" and a couple other words. Maybe a dozen intances in all. But irritating.
Thoroughly enjoyed - enough to want to read the last volume, which I was going to pass by.

[Rad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book in the Owen Skye trilogy follows Owen through a series of unfortunate events, which he attributes to the departure of his beloved classmate, Sylvia Tull. Among other things, Owen must endure failing a multiplication test due to his father’s teasing remark that “every year the teachers choose a new multiplication code” (26). Owen also runs for president of his class (and loses by one vote), brings home a stray dog (which he tries to name after Sylvia even though the dog is male), and nearly kills himself while climbing down the drain pipe of his house. However, Owen also achieves some grown-up expertise in this book – he is able to cook an egg, he learns to perfectly imitate a loon call, and he is finally able to talk to Sylvia when she changes, in his mind, from “Sylvia the untouchable” to “Sylvia who [isn’t:] so hard to speak to” (195).

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love his humor and kid-friendly voice.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the first in the series much better. This one doesn't feature Uncle Lorne as much and that was a shame.