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Tell Me Everything
After her mother dies trying to rescue a boy on a snowy mountain, twelve-year-old Roz searches desperately to understand what happened, and why her mother seemed to choose him over her.
"During a search for a lost teenager, Roz Jacoby's mother simply fell off a mountain and out of Roz's life. Feeling confused, betrayed, adrift, and, at times, guilty, 12-year-old Roz plots a course that will take her to Nate, the boy for whom her mother died...Coman's narrative skillfully unveils past events with a subtle emotional intensity that keeps the reader riveted...Pure poetry."-Starred, Booklist
"During a search for a lost teenager, Roz Jacoby's mother simply fell off a mountain and out of Roz's life. Feeling confused, betrayed, adrift, and, at times, guilty, 12-year-old Roz plots a course that will take her to Nate, the boy for whom her mother died...Coman's narrative skillfully unveils past events with a subtle emotional intensity that keeps the reader riveted...Pure poetry."-Starred, Booklist
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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76 people want to read
About the author
Carolyn Coman
22 books16 followersCarolyn Coman (born 1951 in Evanston near Chicago) is a writer of children's books living in South Hampton, New Hampshire. Her books What Jamie Saw (1995) and Many Stones (2000) were nominated for several awards.
She worked as a bookbinder from 1975-84 and later as an editor with Heinemann before she became a full-time writer. Her books include the portrait documentary of the debut, and a picture book before 4 novels for young adults from 1993 to 2000. Her two latest books (2004 and 2007), for middle grade readers, combine humor, investigation and a sense of nostalgia.
Her four young adult novels are described as “she explores the darker sides of growing up: dealing with parent's abandonment through death in Tell Me Everything, abuse by a stepparent in What Jamie Saw, sibling incest in Bee and Jacky and a political-inspired tragedy in Many Stones.” Many Stones was inspired by the murder of Amy Biehl.
Her book What Jamie Saw (1995) was short-listed for the Newbery Medal and National Book Award, it was also nominated for Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. Many Stones (2000) was a National Book Award finalist, won the Michael L. Printz Award and were listed among School Library Journal's Best Books of The Year.
She worked as a bookbinder from 1975-84 and later as an editor with Heinemann before she became a full-time writer. Her books include the portrait documentary of the debut, and a picture book before 4 novels for young adults from 1993 to 2000. Her two latest books (2004 and 2007), for middle grade readers, combine humor, investigation and a sense of nostalgia.
Her four young adult novels are described as “she explores the darker sides of growing up: dealing with parent's abandonment through death in Tell Me Everything, abuse by a stepparent in What Jamie Saw, sibling incest in Bee and Jacky and a political-inspired tragedy in Many Stones.” Many Stones was inspired by the murder of Amy Biehl.
Her book What Jamie Saw (1995) was short-listed for the Newbery Medal and National Book Award, it was also nominated for Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. Many Stones (2000) was a National Book Award finalist, won the Michael L. Printz Award and were listed among School Library Journal's Best Books of The Year.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 16, 2018
Carolyn Coman has a writing style uniquely her own, every sentence filled with subtle yet impossible to forget beauty. Her stories are often marked by fairly long passages that unfold without spoken dialogue, relying at those times mainly on the internal battles of her young main protagonists to forward the plot and provide us with the information we will need about what happened before the book's beginning. This is the highly personal way in which we come to know twelve-year-old Roz, a girl still under heavy emotional distress several months after the accidental death of her mother, despite the outward affect of quiet content that she presents to most of the world.
The passing away of someone as important as her mother is, to Roz, a concept too big for her to handle all at once. Such a sad happening results in so many levels of loss that it's hard for anyone to come to grips with everything it really means, but Roz is a much more innocent girl than usual for her age, and she hasn't been very successful at all in processing the full reality of her mother's death. The accident that claimed her mother's life came as the end result of a set of odd circumstances that for most people never would have existed in the first place: Roz's mother had heard about a teenage hiker lost alone in the mountains, and headed off on her own to try to save him. While trying to track down the missing youth she fell to her death, and with her exit from our mortal plane tore open a hole in her daughter's life from which Roz hasn't really even begun to recover.
What was it that made a mother, living alone with her young daughter as the only legal guardian the girl had, attempt a dangerous rescue on behalf of a boy she didn't even know? Clues to the reasons behind the untimely death are sprinkled throughout the book. Roz's mother had some seriously traumatic events shape the course of her life, and one of these scarring occurrences in particular shook her mental stability. It's hard to know exactly how extensively her hold on reality had been rattled, but her bearings were clearly at least somewhat askew, and Roz was discomfited at times by some of the effects that her mother's dubious ways indirectly had on her. Nothing could have harmed her as badly as losing her mother, though.
In the aftermath of the accident, Roz has gone to live with her Uncle Mike, her mother's brother. Uncle Mike has his own way of living, but he does everything in his power to help Roz cope with the shock of her mother's death. When it comes down to it, though, there's not really a lot that he can do for Roz. She's still having a hard time comprehending the loss that she has suffered and figuring out what should happen next, and she is further confused by some of the half-baked "realizations" that her mother had imparted to her about forgiveness, trusting God, and learning to move forward against the constant challenges of one's own most enduring source of pain. Roz wants nothing more than to come to terms with the accident, and for her doing so to be in a way that honors the beliefs and attitude of her mother. How is she supposed to do that, though, when the one person who could have guided her through the puzzling darkness is gone forever?
Roz can't just stand still and hope for enlightenment to reach her as it apparently did for her mother. There's a deeper reality and a more complete story out there to be known, she believes, and she's willing to sacrifice anything to earn it. So Roz embarks on a tense, uneasy journey to find the answers she seeks, courageously following the example of the mother she loves so dearly and never wanted to see go away.
Tell Me Everything is a remarkably realistic novel. Carolyn Coman doesn't cheat her readers out of the complete impact of a good story by letting quick fixes or hackneyed character types seep into the manuscript. She writes with the urgency of deeply understood sadness and the throbbing rhythm of expectant hope, and the emotion as shown is so fresh and honest that it attracts us to the people in the narrative and brings us to invest in the outcome of their situation as if we, ourselves, were actually a part of their experiences. For such a short book, Tell Me Everything gives a lot of story and a lot of truth as it presents a piece of one family's life, unadorned by fancy platitudes or easy wisdom standing at the ready to explain the hard parts about our world. Yet somehow, the story ultimately remains one of hope for the future; hope that a devastating loss need not be the absolute end when we still have people in our lives who are willing and able to keep us afloat if we give them the chance. It's a powerful message, made all the more believable by the story's lack of pat sentiment or too-easy conclusion. I always find good reason to recommend the work of Carolyn Coman, and Tell Me Everything is no exception.
The passing away of someone as important as her mother is, to Roz, a concept too big for her to handle all at once. Such a sad happening results in so many levels of loss that it's hard for anyone to come to grips with everything it really means, but Roz is a much more innocent girl than usual for her age, and she hasn't been very successful at all in processing the full reality of her mother's death. The accident that claimed her mother's life came as the end result of a set of odd circumstances that for most people never would have existed in the first place: Roz's mother had heard about a teenage hiker lost alone in the mountains, and headed off on her own to try to save him. While trying to track down the missing youth she fell to her death, and with her exit from our mortal plane tore open a hole in her daughter's life from which Roz hasn't really even begun to recover.
What was it that made a mother, living alone with her young daughter as the only legal guardian the girl had, attempt a dangerous rescue on behalf of a boy she didn't even know? Clues to the reasons behind the untimely death are sprinkled throughout the book. Roz's mother had some seriously traumatic events shape the course of her life, and one of these scarring occurrences in particular shook her mental stability. It's hard to know exactly how extensively her hold on reality had been rattled, but her bearings were clearly at least somewhat askew, and Roz was discomfited at times by some of the effects that her mother's dubious ways indirectly had on her. Nothing could have harmed her as badly as losing her mother, though.
In the aftermath of the accident, Roz has gone to live with her Uncle Mike, her mother's brother. Uncle Mike has his own way of living, but he does everything in his power to help Roz cope with the shock of her mother's death. When it comes down to it, though, there's not really a lot that he can do for Roz. She's still having a hard time comprehending the loss that she has suffered and figuring out what should happen next, and she is further confused by some of the half-baked "realizations" that her mother had imparted to her about forgiveness, trusting God, and learning to move forward against the constant challenges of one's own most enduring source of pain. Roz wants nothing more than to come to terms with the accident, and for her doing so to be in a way that honors the beliefs and attitude of her mother. How is she supposed to do that, though, when the one person who could have guided her through the puzzling darkness is gone forever?
Roz can't just stand still and hope for enlightenment to reach her as it apparently did for her mother. There's a deeper reality and a more complete story out there to be known, she believes, and she's willing to sacrifice anything to earn it. So Roz embarks on a tense, uneasy journey to find the answers she seeks, courageously following the example of the mother she loves so dearly and never wanted to see go away.
Tell Me Everything is a remarkably realistic novel. Carolyn Coman doesn't cheat her readers out of the complete impact of a good story by letting quick fixes or hackneyed character types seep into the manuscript. She writes with the urgency of deeply understood sadness and the throbbing rhythm of expectant hope, and the emotion as shown is so fresh and honest that it attracts us to the people in the narrative and brings us to invest in the outcome of their situation as if we, ourselves, were actually a part of their experiences. For such a short book, Tell Me Everything gives a lot of story and a lot of truth as it presents a piece of one family's life, unadorned by fancy platitudes or easy wisdom standing at the ready to explain the hard parts about our world. Yet somehow, the story ultimately remains one of hope for the future; hope that a devastating loss need not be the absolute end when we still have people in our lives who are willing and able to keep us afloat if we give them the chance. It's a powerful message, made all the more believable by the story's lack of pat sentiment or too-easy conclusion. I always find good reason to recommend the work of Carolyn Coman, and Tell Me Everything is no exception.
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December 25, 2012Coman is the Newbery award winning author of What Jamie Saw.
While I was impressed with her previous work, Tell Me Everything is one to be skipped, before you chuck it against the wall.
It is a disjointed, poorly written, rambling, non sensical tale of a young woman who lost her mother when she rescued a young man on a mountain.
From begging - end this book was frustrating.
The author tried to dump platitudes of religion, finding meaning in pain....but truly, nothing rang true at all.
I think I'll call this one the worst read of 2012.
While I was impressed with her previous work, Tell Me Everything is one to be skipped, before you chuck it against the wall.
It is a disjointed, poorly written, rambling, non sensical tale of a young woman who lost her mother when she rescued a young man on a mountain.
From begging - end this book was frustrating.
The author tried to dump platitudes of religion, finding meaning in pain....but truly, nothing rang true at all.
I think I'll call this one the worst read of 2012.
April 24, 2009
Carolyn's first book shows her trademark psychological and social realism-- she is so honest about her portrayal of real thoughts and real kids-- the adults are well-meaning, but struggling, the kids are fighting to regain their sense of safety after facing great tragedy. It's a touching, well wrought story.
August 10, 2021
I started and stopped reading this book maybe three times. Was kind of dry and drawn out despite being a short book. I just had to finish what I started.
December 15, 2022
I would read this book again.
November 8, 2012
Reviewed by Mechele R. Dillard for TeensReadToo.com
Twelve-year-old Roz Jacoby is mourning the loss of her mother, Ellie, who fell off the side of their secluded mountain as she tried to help a boy, lost in the freezing weather. Now, Roz lives with her uncle, Mike, and is enrolled in public school for the first time, where she spends the day spinning fantastic yarns centered around the death of her mother, such as making Ellie one of the astronauts lost on the space shuttle Challenger for a class presentation about heroes. Every day is a battle for Roz, as she attempts to adapt to her new life off the mountain, without her mother.
Coman is a Newbery Honor-winning author (WHAT JAMIE SAW, Hand Print, 1991), and TELL ME EVERYTHING is a poignant tale of a young girl struggling to understand the harshness of life juxtaposed with the awe and wonder of true faith. But the tale seems a little short on actual tale: The storyline never really gels. There are a lot of interesting, important revelations, but these series of events do not develop into a clear, compelling picture of Roz's life until close to the end, and many readers may lose interest and put the book down long before then.
Abandoning TELL ME EVERYTHING, however, would be a mistake. Roz is lost and searching, floating through a sea of confusion about her mother's death, her uncle's indifference to everything, and her own struggles to form personal ideas and beliefs -- struggles with which most readers, in their respective situations, will likely identify.
Coman's story may not be cohesive at first glance, and it is not an easy read, but it is worth the time of the reader to hang in, connect the pieces, and understand what Roz finally realizes: "You find something out, and then you go on" (p. 138).
Twelve-year-old Roz Jacoby is mourning the loss of her mother, Ellie, who fell off the side of their secluded mountain as she tried to help a boy, lost in the freezing weather. Now, Roz lives with her uncle, Mike, and is enrolled in public school for the first time, where she spends the day spinning fantastic yarns centered around the death of her mother, such as making Ellie one of the astronauts lost on the space shuttle Challenger for a class presentation about heroes. Every day is a battle for Roz, as she attempts to adapt to her new life off the mountain, without her mother.
Coman is a Newbery Honor-winning author (WHAT JAMIE SAW, Hand Print, 1991), and TELL ME EVERYTHING is a poignant tale of a young girl struggling to understand the harshness of life juxtaposed with the awe and wonder of true faith. But the tale seems a little short on actual tale: The storyline never really gels. There are a lot of interesting, important revelations, but these series of events do not develop into a clear, compelling picture of Roz's life until close to the end, and many readers may lose interest and put the book down long before then.
Abandoning TELL ME EVERYTHING, however, would be a mistake. Roz is lost and searching, floating through a sea of confusion about her mother's death, her uncle's indifference to everything, and her own struggles to form personal ideas and beliefs -- struggles with which most readers, in their respective situations, will likely identify.
Coman's story may not be cohesive at first glance, and it is not an easy read, but it is worth the time of the reader to hang in, connect the pieces, and understand what Roz finally realizes: "You find something out, and then you go on" (p. 138).
October 9, 2014
I needed a few pages to get into the main character's head and voice. Her mother has recently died and she has a straight forward, and almost removed, way of processing her world. Bit by bit we get a picture of what life was like with her mother, and why she's having such difficulty adjusting to her new life. I enjoyed the relationship with her uncle and the story overall, in the end.
24/60 tbr box.
24/60 tbr box.
February 6, 2012
Have you ever had a question that you just needed the answer to? This book is about a girl on a mission and trying to learn the truth but not getting the answer she wanted to hear. This is a good example of how to cope with not knowing the full story and how to move on with your life.
April 5, 2014
Slow moving. Skimmed to the end just to see what the point was.
A different take on grief and what it is like for a teen/pre-teen. Wish the girl would have gotten some professional help in the context of the story.
A different take on grief and what it is like for a teen/pre-teen. Wish the girl would have gotten some professional help in the context of the story.
July 11, 2011
im reading this book right now ...and it's awesome
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October 10, 2009searching for her mother's true reason of death ..
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August 20, 2011The fabulous Carolyn Coman's first novel.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews